Lover, lover
by i love alex
Summary: Pregnant. She was pregnant. She was standing in his kitchen, her hair falling around her face, her cheeks covered with tears. And she was pregnant with his kid, they were pregnant.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: So this was by the far the biggest challenge, fan fic wise, I've faced. I've read some Tony/Ziva fics involving pregnancy and either you can do it, or you can't but it's been an idea/image stuck in my brain for a while and I've decided to give it a shot.

Disclaimer: Tony and Ziva have been together for 3 months, starting somewhere after S7.

When she tells him. They're fighting.

It happens by accident really. He hadn't meant to look at her computer screen, or open the flashing email, read the words across the screen, not really. But he was trying to find some papers on her desk she had signed for him and the screen that was flashing her emails had just been…well…on. So glancing across it, more or less dully bored (and also curious to see if she'd saved any of those _emails_ he'd sent her the other day, and seeing a name there that he hadn't heard uttered in over a year and a half made his next breathe come out in a choke. There are no less than 5 emails. And no less than 5 replies.

Completely forgetting why he had come over to her desk in the first place and not realizing the folders he had been holding in his hand have fallen across the floor, he sinks into her chair.

"Gibbs wants us to follow the hotel bar lead, he thinks that it might lead us to…Tony?" Ziva. She enters from the other opening of the gates but she stops suddenly, her words a faster ravel of his beating heart and he can't even glance up at her.

"You wanna explain this to me?"

Ziva frowns, sensing the tone and that he was hunched over her desk, his eyes locked on the screen. As he looks up at her, his eyes a deep mixture of hurt and disbelief, her fathers name begins to pound like guilt against her heart.

She shuts her eyes against it as he stands, his hands gripping to the desk like a vice.

"He leaves you for dead, he abdomens you Ziva and your exchanging pleasantries with him now?" He's past that point of reasoning, she can hear in it in the uneven bitterness of his voice and a small part of her begins to panic, they've only just started being together finally, this cannot possibly be the first thing that ruins them.

"Tony…he is my father." She whispers, focusing her eyes on his and it's only then that he notices the faint black rings beneath her skin; she looks exhausted.

It falters him slightly because he can't remember her ever looking this worn out and he can't believe it has taken him this long to notice, given that it's her face he goes to sleep with, wakes up with, holds, _needs._

He lets out a shaky breathe while noting the fact that she was leaning against her desk like she couldn't keep herself up right. Why was she so tired? They were going to bed at around the same time and she was sleeping right next to him, wasn't she?

He watches her inch closer towards him and it breaks his resolve and flares the anger because he just can't bear it even though his head his screaming at him to understand, to realize that breaking apart from your family wasn't as simple as it seemed. He of all people should know that. But it's like he's just swallowed something bitter down his throat, with it aching against the sides of his throat, his stomach a pit of acid, seething. Her father or not, he used her like the dirt under the sole of his shoe; he didn't deserve anything.

"When?"

She closes her eyes but slides a couple of her fingers barely along his wrist but it's still not close enough and she realizes he's doing it on purpose, "They started coming 6 months ago. It has taken me this long to respond."

His eyes search hers and he opens and closes his mouth a few times before he can find the words, "I don't…I don't understand." He finally says evenly.

He feels the squeeze of his wrist; sees the need for him to understand in her eyes almost as if these are things not happening to him, "You don't have to. Just know that he is my father and he is trying, I'm not about to let him in again, I just think it's important to let him try."

He frowns, taking her words in methodically because something was off and it takes him a couple more seconds to realize why, "_Important_ Ziva? He left you for _dead_. He doesn't give a damn, why should he ever be given the right for something he openly wanted to take away."

The words seem to dredge up the memory more clearly and he suddenly pushes her away like he's just been burnt, taking several steps back, heading towards the exit.

"Tony." She cries, watching him go and he can't ignore the anguish in her face and how it just makes everything hurt more but turning around and running down the stairs, he thinks he might be able to at least flee from it.

Later on, when he's run off most of what he's been feeling and he's returned back to the base, Gibbs is waiting for him.

"You're too late, DiNozzo, she left about an hour ago." Gibbs says and spins in his chair, watching Tony rush through the gates.

Tony falls slightly back against one of the barricades and clutches his chest, getting the breath back. He eventually nods, wanting to deter Gibbs because he can only guess from the look on his face the lecture he's about to get, he had warned them a few times _(7 _to be exact_)_ that they had to keep it out of the office, so he lets out sigh and moves to get himself back down the stairs.

But he hears it just as his back is turned, "DiNozzo."

"Boss I know, outside the office but I don't have time for a lecture right now, I screwed up and you don't-."

"Hey!" Gibbs shouts and Tony, startled gapes wide eyed at his boss, "I wasn't gonna tell you that at all."

"You weren't?"

From instinct, Tony leans back a little, as Gibbs comes slowly forward, "No I was gonna tell you that Ziva left her jacket."

Tony watches, stunned as Gibbs reaches over her desk for the jacket, sitting folded on the chair. He lets his stare linger, catching Tony's eyes before letting the fabric go.

"Fix it."

Tony only nods, "Yes boss."

* * *

For some reason, even though he prefers the feel (it's honestly the warmest, safest place he's felt in) and look (it's almost double the size of his) of her apartment to his, they've made his little condo home base. Though with all of her things there now anyway, it pretty much was home for her, in every sense of the word. She has a toothbrush in the cup beside his, makeup scattered along the countertop, a brush beside the dresser where he'll put his gun (she no longer sleeps with one under her pillow) and her clothes have a draw of their own (though most of them somehow end up mixed in with his). It's only taken them three months and it looks (and feels) like they've been living together for years. He's suggested her moving in permanently but she put it off, telling him they'd need separate apartments just in case.

'Just in case of what?' He'd asked her, feeling a little hurt but she had laughed, the sound vibrating against his throat, 'Maybe you'll get sick of me, Tony.' That conversation had ended with her shirt being pulled off, his hands lacing through hers above her head and his voice growling lowly in her ear, 'Wishful thinking my love.'

But now, as he drove through the rainy streets of Washington he was beginning to understand what she had meant by it. Just in case of a fight, just in case one of them stayed later than the other, just in case they just needed a little space, just in case they broke up.

He grips the steering wheel harder; it had only been 3 months. 3 beautiful, passionate and incredible months. They weren't going to break up. Fuck, why was he being so insecure. _Because_, the voice in his head reminds, it took 4 years for you to get together. Shaking that thought so far out of his head, he slams his door shut and races across the street to doge the rain.

But he's still drenched by the time he gets up to his apartment and unlocking the door and pulling off his jacket, he throws it across the room hoping to hit the couch, not thinking that his girlfriend would be sitting there crying on it.

"You are right."

He clutches his racing heart at the site of her, his keys still dangling from the door.

"Ziva, what the hell are you doing, you scared me."

But she seems to have not heard him, her face placid as she looks out in the direction of his blank television, her eyes he notices wet with tears.

"Ziva I-"

"He doesn't deserve a second chase."

He bites his tongue against the urge to say it'd be more like 100th and walks towards the couch.

"I shouldn't have said those things, I just snapped. If you want to give that…him a chance and he's trying to make up for what he's done, he should be allowed to."

He moves his coat and sits beside her but she gets up quickly, shifting out of his embrace and walks in the director of the kitchen.

"I don't know what I was thinking, I am foolish to even trust his words." She bites out, wiping her cheeks with the fist of her hand.

He watches her, worry etched across his face, filling in the pit of his stomach as she begins to pull things vehemently out of the fridge and cabinets, preparing their dinner (they usually trade nights) aware so clearly of what she was doing, that the crash was coming.

But deciding the moment they first were together not to wait for it anymore, not to pretend that it wasn't there, he pushes himself off of the couch and stands, moving hastily towards her (she had just pulled out the cutting knife and yes, that terrifies him), "Ziva, stop it. Look at me, don't do this to yourself."

"I am not _doing_ anything to myself, Tony. I am doing nothing." She says roughly but her voice breaks and she accidentally drops the bag of peas she has just grabbed out of the freezer.

Both of her hands immediately go up to cover her face as the smack to the ground echoes and silences the apartment. Her shoulders begin to quiver and he moves for her just as she drops her arms, looking away from him through her tears.

"I'm pregnant."

His breathing stops and then starts just as suddenly, coming out in clumps of air. Pregnant. She was pregnant. She was standing in his kitchen, her hair falling around her face, her cheeks covered with tears. And she was pregnant with his kid, _they_ were pregnant.

He takes a couple stumbling steps forward until he falls to his knees, right into her, his fingers finding the hem of her shirt. She lets out a slow breath as he peels up the fabric, those green eyes she thinks she could spot a mile away, those eyes she has memorized, could tell you how they grew in color whenever he was upset, happy, looking up at her. He lifts her shirt until the plane of her tummy is exposed, the skin marveled with goose bumps.

"Baby," He whispers and it spreads across her naval, his finger tips brushing her skin, "How long have you known?"

Her hands claw through his hair, letting herself lean into him, "Just two weeks. I…took a test, made an appointment with my Doctor to confirm."

"You held this with you for so long?" Though he isn't angry just completely awed, completely stunned, completely changed.

He slowly peals his lips, his mouth, his face away from being pressed against her stomach and rises up, not bothering to hide the tears from her.

They stare at one another and it's those seconds that pass between them where they speak, where they fall against the other, bearing the weight. He can feel his raising heart picking up and he doesn't know but he thinks he might vomit, scream or wrap himself around her. But their foreheads seem to graft together, seamed together in the middle of his darkened apartment, the safe lining of the walls holding them upright and it's both calming and exactly what they need.

"God, Ziva, a baby." He whispers and she manages to laugh a little, sniffing against the tears that don't seem to stop.

"I know," She says, "I know."

He holds her tighter, "We can do this," He murmurs though as he looks around their darkened apartment, his hands beginning to tremble he wonders if they really can.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Thank you all so much for the positive response, I was a little nervous about what was going to be said but you guys are awesome, I just hope I don't disappoint you!

I'd also like to apologise for the amount of spelling errors in the previous chapter.

They decide not to tell Gibbs. Or really she decides and gives him that look that tells him she was one step away from clocking him with an elbow when they had arrived the next day at work, going back and forth between the maybes and the not's.

So they don't tell him. But it somehow turns the scale of Tony the goof-off with no sense of an off switch from 10 to 100. Gibbs has already head slapped him 4 times by the time Ziva juts her head in the director of the elevator once they have a moment alone.

She slaps at the buttons once he's in.

"What are you doing?" She grits out through her teeth.

He turns around in a circle, twisting his hair up with his hands, "I don't know, I can't help it, it's like he's a freaking lie detector, he's been looking at me with those beady eyes all morning."

She rolls her eyes because it was completely idiotic but watching his worried face, his hair sticking up in all directions she smiles. How could she be angry at that?

"Well if you were not so obvious about it Tony, maybe it would not give him the reason to become one." She gently says reaching over and pulling him into her arms.

She feels the huff of air he breathes against the skin of her neck, rubbing the tip of his nose back and forth, knowing that's he's already calming simply by the touch.

"We have to tell him, " He whispers quietly.

She shuts her eyes, slightly shifting her weight off of him, knowing he was right but telling Gibbs felt almost like that thin line she quivered between fact and fiction, devastation and love. Telling him would remind her that she might never be able to tell her father, could never see his face as he heard.

Like he knows but really he's felt the way she's tensed, her shoulders curving into his chest, her racing heart, he kisses the corner of her forehead gently and lets out a sigh, "You should tell him too, Ziva."

"It was why I began to email him, I know that it is awful, that I was thinking of telling him before you, " Her voices falls, softens on the _you _as she looks into his eyes and he needs to swallow because it still gets to him that they actually have each other now (baby and all) and that she loves him, just in her _voice_, "But I thought…I hoped I could…"

His hands graze her lower back; they've gotten pretty good at finding those spots, the ones they know will get them gasping for more, curling around, breathing out, breathing in.

"Telling Gibbs will feel…like you need it to feel, Ziva. He's not your father but he's been as close to it, you will be able to tell your father, practice on Gibbs first."

She rubs her nose along his neck, breathing in his familiar scent, "I'll tell him tonight."

"Good." He says, patting her sides just as she moves to flick off the emergency switch, "I hate keeping this a secret."

They remain encircled even as the door dings open, the light cascading though and she voices aloud what they're both thinking through all of this, what they've both been fearing, "I do not want this child to grow up like we did."

And as he gathers her hands up against his chest, he bends his head, kissing that spot right below her ear for all the world to see, "It won't."

* * *

The case they've been working on ends quickly throughout the day and Gibbs surprisingly sends them all home for the afternoon. Ziva lingers behind and she and Ducky end up having tea (decaf, which Ducky says nothing too though she doesn't really like the way his eyes linger), which eases her nerves immensely until she eventually tells him she needs to go home.

Ziva eases her way down the steps of the basement; the only way she's ever been able get herself down there. The image of her brother, the smell of gun powder, the sound of the rain ever fresh in her memory every time she entered, but it was where Gibbs was, the papa bear down in the cave and so that was where she had to go. It's what she repeats to herself.

"Gibbs." She calls out, making herself known.

He pops up from behind the bow of a new ship he's building, grease marks across his cheeks.

"Ziva."

She steps off the last piece of stair and slowly makes her way over towards the bench, letting her hand graze the wooden frame of the ship.

"What number does this make it?"

"8." He grunts now laying against his back with a hammer in his hand.

Ziva hums in reply finally making her way onto a stool and they both sit and work in a comfortable silence for a long moment.

"Gibbs?" She asks eventually, her voice sounding smaller that he had ever remembered hearing it. He pauses mid hammer.

"Ziva?"

Ziva folds her hands together and closes her eyes, "I'm pregnant."

Gibbs slides himself up from the floor, brushes himself off and drops the hammer onto the bench top, leaning against it on a sigh.

His eyes wonder over her for a moment, "I know."

She shouldn't be surprised but she can't help but widen her eyes slightly, her voice lost in her throat.

"You've been tired lately without bothering to cover it and DiNozzo practically shot up off his seat anytime you moved today and you're not hurt."

She nods to this as she looks up at him.

"Is this the part where you grill me with a lecture, give me a rule, tell me I'm an idiot for being so stupid." She asks, flicking her eyes nervously between his.

"No Ziva," And he stands, walking towards her and she feels the tears, the ache of it all, in her eyes, in the warmth of her belly as he wraps both arms around her, "It's the part where I tell you how happy I am for you."

She grips to him harder and she remembers suddenly, the first time he had hugged her like this and how familiar it had felt, safe, how she had let herself go; how she had cried.

She wipes her eyes as they break away, chuckling a little at herself as Gibbs picks up the hammer again.

"I always wanted to be a grandfather." And he doesn't say more, though he doesn't have to. His daughter's face is his words, his voice.

Ziva gets down off the stool, smiling, "You'll be great."

Her feet are just hitting the stairs again when Gibbs speaks again.

"You should tell him, Ziva."

She freezes and feels her heart suddenly beating in her ears and she spits out the first thing she can.

"He will not care."

"Try him."

She pries her fingers off of the banister and nods once, walking so fast out of his house that she's running to get to her car, slamming the smells, the sights, the memories out. Telling Gibbs was supposed to be uplifting, terrifying, a relief, which it was, all so much but she couldn't stop thinking of her father and it makes her want to cry.

It takes her longer to get back to his place than usual and she's not surprised to hear her phone ring just as she pulled up to the curb.

He's waiting just a few feet from the front door, his expression apprehensive, like he was expecting the worst but as she shuts the door, letting herself rest against it, it fades quickly and is instead replaced by a small smile.

"Are you okay?"

Though he can tell that she isn't.

She nods anyway, pushing away from the door and dropping her bag against a chair, colliding into him to be held.

He simply grins, wiping the hair back from her face, wrapping both arms over the small of her back.

"Papa smurf tell you he was happy for you?"

He feels her head nod, her fingers gripping a little too tightly than usual to his wrist.

She uses them to push herself back, standing within the circle of his arms as his gaze falls over her, his nose nudging the nearest cheek.

"What do you need?" He softly asks.

And without a word, a hint of a grin he defines as only pure Ziva, that one he fell in love with, slips onto her face as she tugs at him to follow her towards their bed, peeling off her layers before he can.

She doesn't want to think of her father, of Gibbs, of anything but Tony. To be with the only one who knew just how hard this was, how much it was.

And as his kisses melt against her collarbone, her skin, she cups with both hands his face in hers, sliding up against it to whisper into his ear; he's just untangled her belt buckle.

"Make love to me."

She can feel his breathing stagger and he kisses her cheek before taking them both slowly backwards, laying her down with a soft thump.

She slides off his pants with just her toes and wraps her legs around his waist, bringing him as close as she could get him and he ranks down her body with just his lips.

"Tony."

His mouth finds her belly button, tracing lines with his tongue and she moans, balling up the sheets with her fists.

"We're having a baby," He suddenly whispers, fingers brushing across her stomach, tracing a line down her belly button and into the curve of her thigh; she shivers, her back arching slightly off the bed.

"Yes," She gasps, "Yes."

Her underwear gets peeled off and he comes back up, planting kisses across her shoulder and neck before she tugs at his head, kissing him before he could shut his eyes.

She's sucking on his lower lip, their moans filling the air as he takes her in one flush motion, kissing her before she could gasp.

And she seeps into him; forgetting _everything._

_

* * *

_

He's watching her as she stares out through the window later that night.

"I hope it's a girl." He murmurs and brushes his hands down her side, feeling the curve of her hip.

She slowly turns, blinking lazily at him, a smile spilling onto her face, "Me too."

A/N: I know I'm making this ridiculously emotional but I believe that's how they would handle it, privately, both of them being emotionally driven people.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: You all are too too wonderful, thank you so much for the response, for the support, and for the stories, ideas. It's all so much appreciated.

She cries all the time now. And at completely inane things. It completely freaks him out because he had only seen her really cry once before they had gotten together and she hadn't even really been crying. But now she balls; she sobs, she weeps.

He was wondering when the rest of the hormonal stuff he had heard about (yeah, he's been reading those books) was going to come but he would've never guessed it was going to be this much, this fast.

And it completely freaks him out.

It begins one night as they're lounging on the couch, her arms stretched above her, wrapped around his head, their legs a mess of limbs. Her fingers fiddle with his hair mindlessly as they watch the movie he picked out, Avatar, for the 100th time (it's one movie they can both agree on.) It's coming up to the ending, the lovers being reunited amidst the battle and as Tony begins to faze out, Ziva starts to cry.

He doesn't even realize it until moments later when he can feel the moisture against his cheek, feeling her back beginning to quiver, "Are you crying?" (They've literally seen this movie together one too many times and she never cried once, if anything he remembers her scoffing.) He lifts his back forward in order to shift her but she turns her face, her hands balled to her eyes.

"No." She thickly replies but then she sniffs loudly and lets her hands drop and she's a mess of tears and snot, trailing down her face.

"Oh sweetheart, it's okay." He pulls her against him and she shoves her face into the crook of his shoulder, her body practically racking with her sobs.

"Ziva," He starts amused, he rubs at her back with one hand and keeps the other balled up in her hair. He's more or less stunned and more or less scared as hell.

"I hate this thing, making…me...overly…emotional, this is…ridiculous."

"It's not ridiculous babe, they're called hormones."

She shakes her head as a sob creeps out, her body shaking with it, "I have…no idea…why I'am crying…so stupid."

Not knowing what else to do, he whispers a hush against the side of her face, rocking her back and forth the best he could as she curled her legs over and around him, tears melting against his white shirt.

By the time she's fallen asleep, the movie has gone back to the menu screen and he can't reach for the remote to get rid of the shining blue. So scooping her up into his arms, he pads them towards their bed, carefully laying her down.

He gathers the blankets over then drops down to the bed himself, exhausted, feeling like he too had cried himself close to sleep. It wasn't just because it had scared the living daylights out of him, but not knowing what to do, that desperate feeling of hopelessness of seeing her so upset, was the worst part.

He honestly can't remember changing and crawling into bed but he's suddenly awoken by the sound of retching somewhere over to his left and jolts awake, looking over to the clock. It was four am.

Ziva.

He pushes himself up and half stumbles towards the bathroom, pushing open the door, the light hurting his eyes. She's hunched over the toilet bowl, her face pressed against the ceramic.

"Okay?" He mumbles, bending down to squeeze at the back of her neck.

She nods unsteadily, turning her head to look up at him before another wave of nausea hits her and she's retching again, clutching her stomach.

"Oh baby," He mumbles and gets down to the floor, leaning against the cabinets with a hand outstretched over her leg.

"It's okay." She moans, "Go back to bed, work." She reminds him before she's throwing up again.

He grimaces but squeezes her foot, not intending to move again at all until she did.

She barely turns her head, making a face at him for not leaving just as she coughs up and heaves and he wonders, half seriously but mostly sleep deprived if that could be bad for the baby. There was nothing left in her to cough up.

"It's. Normal." She slowly says like she's read his mind, breathing in and out heavily with her face against the crook of her elbow.

He just continues to rub her feet. He falls asleep with them in his arms, his back bent in a direction that will, he can tell immediately as he awakens, make his neck hurt for days.

She's sitting there in front of him when he opens his eyes, smiling weakly.

"Hey scruffy man." She says, pulling gently at one of his earlobes and he slowly moves himself up right, blinking awake.

"Hey." He says gruffly and pulls at the ache in his neck, "How long was I out?"

"Oh, you missed most of the fun."

He grins half-heartedly and reaches for her waist to bring her closer. She was brushing his hair back behind his ear with just the tips of her nails and it felt heavenly; he could fall back asleep right where he was.

"Gibbs called."

He's awake. She laughs as he rushes to push himself up, using the sink and her arm.

"It's okay Tony, it's okay, " She laughs, "He just wanted to see if everything was alright."

He squints his eyes at her, pausing immediately from fiddling to fix his hair.

"He did?"

She nods, still smiling as she puts either hand against his hips. He relaxes after a moment, against her and flicks his eyes over her face, she looked pretty worn out but still impossibly beautiful, her hair a wild mess, her soft eyes looking at him knowingly.

"Mmmm," He lowly growls and tugs her forward so she's rising on her tiptoes, kissing her full on the mouth; she tasted like his mint toothpaste, one of his favorite ways to wake up. She dips one hand down the back of his boxer shorts and he tugs a little at her lower lip on a moan, pressing his face closer.

"I take it…you're…feeling better." He breathes against her lips.

"Mmmm," She moans and she runs both hands over his ass before sliding them forward to the front, "A lot better."

"Ziva.." He tries to chock out as she palms him, licking her tongue into his mouth. Oh god. His other favorite way to wake up.

Just as he's kissing her again and she's tugging down his boxer shorts, his phone begins to ring from the other room and she slips her hands out from beneath his shorts, bringing them up to cover her mouth. She suddenly looked queasy.

"Phone." She manages before she quickly lifts the lid of the toilet and vomits again.

He hovers in the doorway and as she moves her head back she sees the worry across his face, noticing that he looked more than a little freaked out. She knew he didn't want to leave her.

"Tony, go. I will call you later."

He still doesn't move and she bites out the, "_Gibbs_," before another bout of nausea hits. He needs to block out her groaning to turn and leave her, gathering his pants and his phone from the floor.

Minutes later he ducks his head back into the bathroom.

She's now sitting against the lip of the tub looking completely drained, her face pale and her hair sticking to the sides of her neck. She's clutching to a washcloth in one hand.

He doesn't need to twist her arm into staying home; she can't move an inch without leaving the ceramic bowl. And her field time was getting cut back anyway but he doesn't like the idea of leaving her alone like this.

She lifts her head up for him to kiss, which he does, hesitating over the crown of it. She can barely shove him away, her energy gone, "Go. I'll see you tonight."

"I'll have my cell on, all day."

She actually laughs a little as he backs out of the doorway.

"Tony. Go!"

He rushes out through their bedroom, already late to meet Gibbs. He can hear her retching again as he locks the front door. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

It's a long, messy day. Filled with suspects that don't want to talk and witnesses who do, straight out of their ass. The only thing that keeps him going is knowing what or rather who he was coming home too and that the day had to end eventually, which it does a little close to 5.

He opens the door to find her in one of his shirts and in a pair of cotton shorts, her hair twisted up into a messy bob with the music, as it always was, up way too loud. Her energy was definitely back.

He watches from the doorway as she bobbled along, her hands clad with a paintbrush and can. He doesn't know what the hell she could be painting but he doesn't really care, grinning. She had a cute little way of dancing without actually dancing, her butt doing most of the moving (not that he minds.)

"Hey Martha Stuart, what've you done with my girlfriend."

She spins around, her eyes a little too wild and she moves the paintbrush-clad hand up to her chest, "Oh my god, Tony."

He grins wickedly, tossing his keys onto the table, "That's pretty easy to believe."

He walks over to the stereo, turning it down a little before he comes up behind her and slides his hands up along her hipbones, lifting the shirt almost to her breasts, "How's my baby doing?" He murmurs softly into the base of her ear.

She cocks her head to one side, leaning against him and the groan slips freely out of her mouth, "She is…much…better." His lips leave sloppy kisses along her neck, his thumbs now peeking into the band of her underwear.

"And my other baby," He leaves her neck to turn her gently around, getting on his knees to press a kiss to her belly button. Ziva lets out a long moan, letting his hands take the paintbrush and can from her grasp. She moves her hands to his head, threading her fingers through it as he continued to lick his way down her stomach, "You…ah…you tell me," Her voice ends on a startled laugh, his arms scooping her butt up, lifting her easily against his waist. He buries his face into her neck and she wraps her arms around him.

"I missed you today, every single crappy second," He quietly says against her skin, hidden by her hair.

She grins, fingering his ear lobe, "I actually got a lot of work done."

He eyes the paint can and pats her butt, "I can see that, turning my apartment into an art studio?"

She shrugs as she smirks, "I was bored. Haven't painted a thing yet."

He raises his eyebrows up and their foreheads meet, "Oh yeah?"

They stare at one another for a long moment and he forgets all about his shitty day.

"Gibbs gave me the night off."

She laughs until he kisses her and it dies out into a low moan in her throat.

They end up making love on the carpet, the sun pouring over them as it sinks down against the city. The paint from her hands leaves traces all over his body and later, when they're taking a shower together he can feel the beginning bloom of her belly and he uses the stream of the water to hide the way he starts to cry and can't stop.

It doesn't freak him out. Not a single bit.

* * *

A/N: The morning sickness is a total shout out to Under Covers, know why? ; )


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I'd just like to make a general apology if the act of Ziva painting in the previous chapter offended or upset anyone. Though I have read that certain paints can be safe, the toxins in the paintcan be harmful to the fetus, something I have only just recently discovered. Ziva would never purposefully endanger her unborn child (though saying that is going to bite me in the ass in the next chapter) so she wouldn't have done it if she would have thought it not safe. Again, my deepest apologies for any offense.

And yay for remembering the morning sickness line in Under Covers! Haha, bit of irony there for you.

Her field time gets pulled back even further as the weeks pass and the rest of them try to treat it as though nothing is out of the norm. She's still a kick ass interrogator (Tony thinks the baby bump helps as a deterrence) and Gibbs has her working harder than ever, to distract her from the fact that she was pretty much banned from fieldwork.

But her agitation rises (both verbally and physically) only slightly, until of course they get a call out and she's stuck behind manning the phones, regretting for ever making fun of Abby's fear when they all left; it was terrifying the not knowing.

But Tony called when he could, telling her that they caught the suspect, that it was getting a little out of hand but he's okay and that he'll see her soon.

Which works fine enough until a callout turns into the nightmare she had feared. Though this one, she can't wake up from.

It's a Monday morning, which is usually (surprisingly) the slowest caseload day, not much traffic and not much noise but it's around lunchtime when Gibbs gets the call from Vance. Ziva already doesn't like it from the way Gibbs' face whitens, the way his hand shakes somewhat, fumbling to put the phone back into it's cradle.

"McGee. Tony. Both of you grab your gear and meet me downstairs in the car. I've gotta see the director. We've got a hostage situation."

Ziva is half way out of her seat, standing when she hears the word hostage. She needs to rest her hands against the edge as she turns from Gibbs' hardened face to Tony's bewildered one.

"A hostage," She starts, her voice hitching, "What's the situation, is it under control, whose been called in? SWAT? Do I need to send out a BOLO?" She rattles them all off quickly and Gibbs stops to reach around the desk sitting Ziva slowly down.

"You stay put, we'll fill you in once we get there. McGee, DiNozzo, come on, car!"

They both move together in a flurry of bags and keys as Gibbs races towards the stairs, jumping them two at time towards MTAC.

McGee pulls his pack over his shoulder, flying past Ziva's desk, giving her a smile that is, Ziva is sure, meant to be reassuring. But it only fuels an ache at the back of throat and she begins to rub her belly as Tony comes around her desk.

"It's probably some bitter Marine wife, finally getting her revenge." She knows he's just trying to lighten the mood, what he does when he's nervous as hell but she can't find a thing to laugh about; nothing about this was funny because she can hear it; the worry right in his voice. Something was off, something felt off but he's leaning down to kiss her forehead and she's lost on the words to get him to understand or to stop, to stay.

"I'll see you soon." He winks, gathering his bag upon his back and she stares at him, her mouth parting open watching him go but he stops suddenly just around the wall of the desk.

"And don't even think about it, Ziva, You hear me? You stay put."

They stare at one another until finally, weakly, she nods and he starts towards the elevator, only breaking his eyes away till he needs too.

She's left standing there while the continuous buzz of the squad room carries on around her, perfectly normally. She can feel the uneven beat of her heart and tries to open her nostrils, open her mouth to get more air in for the both of them, rubbing again at her belly.

She wants to go downstairs and be with Abby but Gibbs hasn't left MTAC yet and she wants to see his face, wants to sense like she sometimes could, what he wasn't telling them but when he does come racing back down the steps, he's a blur of color and all she can make out is his voice, "Sit Da'vid. You_ don't_ move. I'll call in 20."

She can't stand any longer; her knees now giving way and sinks into her chair. She doesn't know where her cell is but she doesn't think it's far. Her bag maybe, her drawer? She begins to look for it all the while ignoring that little sound she's making from her mouth, that her heads won't stop shaking.

She doesn't like this, this overwhelming uneasiness and that her ability to control it wasn't working. She didn't freak out, she was calm, strong, brave but something was off. And she can feel it right in the depths of her belly and she wonders as Abby comes walking through the pen, if it was because maybe her baby could too.

"Ziva," Abby says and it's the unmistakable relief in her voice that immediately snaps Ziva back into some type of control and she quickly pulls out her cell phone from the top desk drawer.

"What's the situation?"

Ziva knows Abby isn't lying when she shakes her head, her own face filled with an uneasiness, "I don't know yet."

"Gibbs said he would ring me in 20 minutes so I think until then we prepare ourselves and just remain calm, this is routine."

Abby quickly nods as she paces to and fro. It makes Ziva nauseous, her morning sickness unrelenting in the middle of her second trimester, so she lays down her head onto her arms to wait for the call.

It doesn't take very long. She snaps her head up when she can make out the buzz. Gibbs doesn't even wait to start talking.

"We've got a Marine gone AWOL, his wife got the kid in the divorce. I need you to run a background check on Lieutenant Larry Wilson, see if there's anything in his file that will let us know where his mind's at, his history. The principal of the daughter's school is on his way to the base to offer any useful information."

"What's the situation?"

Gibbs is silent for a moment too long and Ziva practically snarls out the, "What is the situation."

"8 kids, on a bus down at the abandoned depot. He shot the bus driver, has a gun to his daughters head." It comes out, piece by piece for her and it all rushes thickly around her head, numbing her.

"Tell Abby to get downstairs, I'll call her from there."

She can hear the weakening of his voice, his strength faltering and she knows he's hanging onto whatever bit of he's got left. It only makes her think of Tony.

"Gibbs…" She tries.

"Anything you find useful, you call me." And he hangs up.

Ziva turns her head to see Abby watching her from McGee's desk and they share a look before Ziva opens her mouth.

"Gibbs wants you to-"

"I know." Abby cuts her off softly and stands, moving not to the elevator but towards Ziva.

Her expression revealing an array of things but mostly worry, reluctance and it clicks in Ziva's mind as Abby folds her bottom lip down, creeps just a little closer, why.

"Abby, I promise I will not leave, go."

Abby hesitates, scrunching up her nose and her hands into tight fists and Ziva can only guess who assigned her the job of making sure she didn't leave, so much as move. She would've thought it slightly humorous if the situation had been different. They all knew her so well, perhaps too much.

"I promise." Ziva repeats breathlessly just as her phone begins to ring. She looks away from Abby to pick it up.

"Agent Da'vid, Mr Henries the principal of Rosemarywood Elementary is here for you."

Ziva nods, looking over to see that Abby had left, "Send him up."

* * *

Mr Henries is a tall man, much taller than Gibbs with a hard face but Ziva can see the concern, almost guilt fresh in his eyes as he walks over.

"Special Agent Ziva Da'vid." She says as she stands up, reaching over for his hand.

He moves around closer towards her desk, his eyes lingering on her stomach and he doesn't say anything though Ziva can hear it all the same, _you're not in the right state to be handling a situation like this. _She hates that it makes her question if maybe she isn't.

"If you'd like to follow me."

She leads them to an empty conference room, offering tea or coffee, which he declines, before she takes her seat, folding her hands together on the desk. He sits across from her.

"Mr Henries, are you aware of the hostage situation 8 of your students are currently in?"

He nods, "I know they're names if that helps."

It completely derails her for a moment. They had names, they had people waiting for them, people who had given them those names, knowing the reasons why, and it was the most important thing she could think of. But it wasn't helpful, not for her now. She shakes her head against it, "We just need information on the parent holding the children hostage. Does the name Larry Wilson mean anything to you?"

He looks down at his hands and then across the desk, his face contemplative for a moment, "The name sounds familiar but I have no memory of meeting him."

Ziva's jaw locks and she squares her shoulders, "No memory at all? There are no fewer than three reports of him entering the school on several occasions heavily inebriated and you have no memory of him at all?"

He wipes at his forehead, sweat starting to appear, "No, those were small incidences taken care of by teachers, I was aware of what Mr Wilson had done but I never come into contact with him, he promised to never step foot onto school property again."

She's finding it hard to keep her breathing even, anger simmering within her and her voice comes out louder than she had intended, "And you didn't find it prudent to notify police that an intoxicated man was in the presence of students, children, Mr Henries?"

He moves forward in his chair, looking indignant, "No, like I said, they were small incidences."

Ziva pauses, letting the tension ease as Henries clears his throat and fixes his tie, "Why were the children on the bus in the middle of a school day?" She asks quietly.

"They're in kindergarten, they only do half days. Some parents prefer to pick their children up from the school and the rest will take the school bus home."

She hears nothing else past the word kindergarten. Her heart stopping. They weren't just kids, they were still only babies. Defenseless, terrified, innocent four year olds, five year olds. Just _babies._ Her heart clutches around it and as much as she longs too, she's too afraid to put her hands anywhere near her stomach right now.

"Thank…thank you, Mr Henries, for your time…you can go back to your school…to the other children. We will call if we need to."

He looks confused but otherwise relieved at being given the okay to leave.

Ziva holds out until the very second he's closed the door to rush around the desk, pull back her hair and throw up into the waste basket, once, twice, three times until she's gagging on just air.

She hangs her head over the top of it and quietly begins to sob, warm wet tears trailing down her face as she keeps one hand on her bent leg and one on the wall. She couldn't be like this, she couldn't break down, her baby depending on her, lives miles away depending on her.

She swallows a couple times, brushes the tears away from her face and as she's pushing herself upright, her cell phone rings.

"Agent Da'vid?" A SWAT officer demands.

"Speaking." She says, clearing her throat, her voice hoarse.

"We've got a team surrounding the building and the children have been evacuated, all but one. His daughter Kasey, she's five."

"Are Special Agents, Gibbs, DiNozzo and McGee clear?"

"That's a negative ma'am, we've got a Special Agent McGee in direct line of the shooter. He is threatening to shoot the girl if Special Agent McGee doesn't back down. We believe he's planted a bomb on the bus and that he's the switch, little girl's sitting right at the back of it. We're working on it."

"Where is Special Agent Gibbs?" Though all she really wants to ask is _where is Tony, where is he, how are you working on it, how fast?_

"We don't know, ma'am."

Ziva sways on the spot, her fingers sliding against the table and it takes her a few minutes before she mumbles the _copy_ faintly into the speaker, almost dropping the phone to put it down. She's dimly aware that she should be doing things right now, making phone calls, but her feet pick her up and take her mechanically across the floor towards the elevator and to Abby, who probably knows by now, who will need somebody like Ziva does right now.

She rehearses it in the confines of the elevator, a speech, a safe, no room for hesitation speech. Encircling herself so tightly around the facts, the words repeating themselves like she's in a trance. Falling out of it once the door dings open to breeze into Abby's lab before she can stop to think about it any longer.

"Abby, the children are safe but McGee is being held at gunpoint. A SWAT team is surrounding the building. There might be a bomb wired to the bus but there are people who are currently working on the situation." Though Abby should know all this, it helps to be the one to relay the information, like it should make the resolution clearer, simpler. Both.

But Abby doesn't turn her back, doesn't flinch or make any suggestion that she has heard any of it. Ziva slowly walks in further, making her way up just behind her.

"He is a good Agent, a brilliant Agent...who survived being held up at a woman's prison of all places. He _will_ be fine, Abby."

It's at that moment when Abby turns and Ziva takes in her face, the way it's tightened, not out of fear like she expected but out of gentle remorse.

"It's not McGee he's got Ziva," And Abby hesitates and it's all Ziva can to do not fall to the ground, feeling a subtle burn somewhere in the depths of her belly, because she suddenly knows, of course it would be him, of course.

"It's Tony."


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: I have a feeling I'm going to get some negative feedback towards Ziva because of this chapter but please try to keep an open mind and think of the type of person she is and know that she isn't in her right state of mind at this point either. And if you wanna be mad at anyone because of what she does, be mad at me, not Ziva. Tony's already got it covered, believe me.

Within 5 minutes of NCIS arriving at the abandoned warehouse that was once used as Washing DC's downtown bus depot, Larry Wilson has shot and killed Daniel Murphy in the back of the head, the 60 year bus driver. Has flashed open his jacket, revealing a detonator that shields his entire chest, yet has also let 7 of the 8 children, go. His daughter sitting by a side window as her father paces the alleyway of the bus, a shotgun in one hand.

They had snuck in through a back entrance, Gibbs directing both McGee and Tony into different sections of the building to cover all possible areas of entry and exit, while settling himself on a stair well, perched in a corner overlooking the ground, preparing his rifle.

It takes Larry Wilson within 10 minutes of NCIS arriving to become aware of their presence. For a SWAT team to arrive surrounding the perimeter via Gibbs' instructions. For McGee to relay from Abby that the detonator attached to Larry's chest was mechanically wired to the underbelly of the bus, creating a dead man switch, making it foolproof. If they killed Larry, they'd kill Kasey too.

And for Larry Wilson to step out of the bus and start making threats.

"I KNOW YOU ARE OUT THERE…I WILL SHOOT HER…IN THE HEAD, IF YOU DON'T COME OUT." He roars and it echoes around the cemented brick walls so that no matter where your standing, hiding, you can hear it.

From where he's been standing, Tony is in direct eye line of the little girl, tears matting her cheeks as she sits terrified, flicking her eyes between her father and Tony's face. He tries to make eye contact when he can, barely smile when he can.

It's silent for too long and it flares Larry's agitation as he flinches around, clutching his gun to his chest. He pauses a moment before stepping back on the bus, clamoring to the back of it. He snatches a piece of his daughters collar, pulling her off the seat and down off the bus steps.

"I MEAN IT, I WILL KILL HER, RIGHT NOW IF I DON'T SEE YOUR HANDS."

His daughter is shaking so badly that the only thing keeping her up is the hold her father barely has on her shirt and it takes Tony all of 30 seconds to rip out his ear wig, reposition his gun and come around the wall he was ducking behind with his hands up.

"Okay, okay, I'm out Larry. You don't have to shoot her."

From where he's standing, McGee bends over, sagging forward with his hands on his knees, shaking his head. _Damn it, Tony. _ From where he's sitting, Gibbs slumps against the nearest wall, gripping to his rifle. _Damn it, DiNozzo._

"Let her go, Larry." Tony starts, stepping forwards, his hands still raised in the air. Up close he can see the sweat dripping off of Larry's face, can see the way he swallows and then breathes and then swallows again.

"Shut up. Don't tell me what to do." Larry turns his back slightly so that he's facing his daughter, bending down to meet her face, "Okay baby, back on the bus."

It makes hot acid burn it's way up into Tony's throat the way Larry gently brushes her chin, tears and snot just dropping off of it and he needs to swallow down the bile, threatening it's way up. His daughter just continues to cry, standing there and Larry running out of patience pushes her roughly towards the doorway until she's stumbling her way back on just to get out off his reach.

It takes every single piece of restraint, every single piece of desperate restraint for Tony not to think of Ziva, to not take in her face, sink into those eyes. To not let himself leave this place and be with her where she was, safe as he looks up at Kasey, slumped against a window, barely conscious.

"How many more of you are there?" Larry demands, waving his gun around in the air.

"It's just me Larry, so we can talk, just the two of us and I can help you get what you want, we'll figure it out together." Tony holds his hands out cautiously and creeps forward, one tiny little step at a time. He knows if he moves the slightest bit out of line, he's done.

Larry seems to soften, his shoulders sagging and he opens and closes his mouth several times before he can find the words, "They…don't understand, nobody understands."

Tony takes a couple slow deep breaths, "I understand Larry, so talk to me, let me help you."

"You…you can't help me, it's too late. Too late. It's been done, it's too late." Larry stutters, appearing to completely forget for a moment where he was, what he was holding and the tiny little human being just above his head who he was doing it all for.

"It's too late. It's too late." He repeats it again, pacing back and forth a couple feet and Tony uses the opportunity to take a couple steps forward.

Larry stops pacing.

"ENOUGH!" He shouts, his eyes piercing through Tony's, his face almost contorted.

"I risked everything, did everything I was supposed to do and this is the thanks I get…she abandons me, she leaves me. They took her away from me." He cries and bends his elbows, clamping his arms over his ears, rocking back on the balls of his feet.

Tony stays where he is, adrenaline pumping through him faster than he can rationally think. There weren't very many options for him, his resources low, his obstacles higher, other than for him to risk stepping closer, gauging Larry further which could either fuel him enough to get his daughter back down off the bus, or to shoot Tony.

Tony looks back up to the girl and the thought is so instant that Ziva is wrapping herself around him, clawing her way up his back when he opens his mouth, looks back to Larry and takes another step forward. There weren't options. There were only solutions.

"Look at your daughter, Larry. You don't want to hurt her anymore than you have."

Tony knows he's said the wrong thing almost immediately, Larry's face crumbling, his body convulsing forward, "I've done nothing but protect her, love her!" He screams and Tony watches as Kasey, now alert, presses her face against the glass and begins to cry loudly, covering her ears with both hands.

"I know you do, so you wouldn't want to hurt her." Tony says evenly, keeping both palms out and low.

"How do you know what I want? Did your wife leave you, your child call some other bastard her father." He asks, jutting the gun towards Tony's chest.

Ziva. Ziva. _Ziva_. He can feel her fingers across the nape of his neck, slipping under his shirt, her stomach against his back. He hadn't even felt the baby kick yet.

"No I don't Larry but I know what it's like to lose everything you thought you had…I don't have a kid but my wife, she's pregnant. We're going to have a baby Larry, you don't want to take another child away from her father. "

It is a known method, to give a shooter as much information about yourself as possible, to make you seem more human, his experience and his training back as a cop telling him as much but as this information tumbles out of him he can hear the way his voice trembles and thinks of how times this method has saved somebody's life and it many times it hasn't.

"She's…she's having a baby?" Larry's face softens, his eyebrows lowering.

Tony can only nod, every single part of him suddenly weak.

"What's her name?"

He thinks, for only half a second, about lying but her name is already rising up his throat, sticking against the sides of his mouth, that constant steady beat pounding against the skin.

"Her name is Ziva."

"And she will shoot you in the back if you do not drop your weapon."

Later, when he will let himself think about it, he will ask himself, repeatedly, why he did not move faster, think faster, act faster. But with his heart suddenly too far stuffed into his throat so that breathing is impossible, his vision blurry as her voice echoes all around him, he can't seem to grasp a hold of her face and that makes him not be able to do a thing at all.

Several things seem to happen at once.

He's being dragged, arms locked around his own in a vice like grip, backwards, further away until he's half thrown half pushed into an empty room just off a corridor.

"The girl. We got the girl. Gibbs, he has a shot." McGee quickly musters, deploring Tony with his face, having to close the door with his entire body.

But none of it matters, doesn't mean shit because Ziva was still standing on the other side of the wall, Ziva, with all her fire and light, with her passion, her intensity, her kindness, her selflessness that sometimes bordered on stupidity.

He can't remember if he told her if he loved her that morning, if he felt her stomach, if he just let himself look at her for a moment longer. She was standing less than 3 feet away and he could do nothing. She was _his _baby, his. He would not do nothing.

"Don't make me hurt you, Tim." And as McGee looks into Tony's darkening eyes, completely detached from reason, reality, from anything other than what was outside the door, he knows he would, he absolutely would.

McGee doesn't move and Tony shoves him backwards, slamming him against the door.

"I swear McGee, if you do not let me go, I _will _put a bullet in your head."

Tony pulls out the gun stuffed into his back pocket and reloads it in seconds, forcing his hand straight to keep it from shaking.

But McGee doesn't miss a beat and only blocks the entrance further, "Shoot me then."

Tony hesitates and drops his arm and takes a couple steps back, panting heavily, shuddering with his unbelievable anguish, helplessness, not seeing a thing but her face. How dare you do this to me, I need _you_. You're carrying our baby and I need _you_.

And McGee lets out a shaky breath as Tony reaches for the nearest thing, needing something, anything, a chair and throws it so hard against the wall that it snaps in two.

"Your husband seems to be quite upset." Larry says calmly as he faces Ziva with a smug grin on his face, her arm holding the gun not wavering an inch from his chest.

Though she's only thinking of Tony and how he had looked, how McGee had to drag him back with both feet along the ground and how he had stared desperately for her, her eyes narrow, and a familiar burn of energy pumps through as though she were 19 again.

"He's not my husband."

And just as she triggers her gun and Larry pulls his hand up, a bullet rings clean through the air and shoots Larry in the back of the head. He drops to his knees and then to his face, inches away from where she stands.

Ziva can't even find Gibbs' location before mere seconds pass and the bomb, rigged to Larry's body, explodes violently from the bus. The force of it smacking Ziva against a wall as she moves for cover into a side corridor, scraping the skin off her arm along the bricks.

She thinks she can hear her name being screamed amongst falling pieces, thickening flames of heat, as she very slowly finds the floor and fades out, being vaguely aware that she was falling, mercifully to her back and not her front.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Ah, you guys are awesome awesome awesome. Thank you for mostly keeping an open mind and an understanding. Sorry for the delay, there was a slight personal emergency but I'm back with a long ass chapter to make up for it.

He had gone with her to the hospital but had left before she had woken up, once getting the results back that mother and baby were doing absolutely fine.

She begins to cry when she does wake up and doesn't stop until Gibbs walks into the room and tells her to, Abby still too upset with her and McGee too afraid. Explaining repeatedly what had happened, that she hadn't hurt her baby, that Tony was okay (enough, anyway, she was alive.) He's furious with her as well but he cannot ignore the blaringly obvious voice in his head telling him that he'd do exactly the same thing.

It's true. He would.

When he tells her, she manages to calm slightly, brushing her tears away with just the tip of her thumb, almost suddenly self-conscious as she looks out of the window and away from him.

"I would like to go home now."

Gibbs sighs and then nods, flapping around his cap as he walks out of the room to find a nurse. He knew what she meant by home. Tony. But Tony had barely looked at her from taking her away from the warehouse to the hospital; home was the last thing she would need.

Ziva moves her hands from beneath the hospital gone and touches her belly tentatively until she's splaying her hands as wide as she can across it, so wide it hurts. For you, she wants to whisper out loud but can't, for you.

* * *

He could kill her, he could actually kill her. He figures he could get out of receiving the full sentence, putting it down to manslaughter of a manic pregnant woman, wanting to get herself murdered.

He doesn't know who drove her home but her car is parked on the curb in its regular place after he comes back from walking around the entire city, the sun going down. And just at the sight of it, he's feeling the ache within the pit of his stomach and he's having trouble breathing as he makes his up through the foyer.

He has no idea how he's going to handle this but he knows that stopping to think about it wasn't going to change a thing. Usually they waited for things to get so bad they crashed right into the problem but it was different this time they had to face it, head on.

He can feel her before he can see her.

"I'm sorry."

She's standing underneath the archway that connects their bedroom to the living room, the in-between, as he likes to call it, with her face hidden by the shadows.

He keeps his jaw locked, his heart racing and he pretends he doesn't hear her and makes his way over to the bookshelf where the liquor he never drinks is kept. He gets out a bottle of scotch and a small glass. He can hear tiny gasp from across the room. They both knew what alcohol meant, the history behind it, the message behind it.

He downs it in one straight go, slamming the shot glass onto the wooden table, grunting back the familiar burn.

She steps towards the table unable to keep the distance between them and makes her way carefully around it.

"Tony," She gently tries, her hands faintly resting against his hunched shoulder blades once she's reached him. He was breathing far too heavily and it makes her nervous because he still hasn't said a word to her; she's afraid he's gonna swing out at something that isn't there when he really should just be looking at her.

"Tony, please." She starts again and takes a hand against his neck, clawing for him to turn around and just face her. She needs to see his face. Needs to see the damage. Needs to calm him down.

"No." Is all he can manage, shrugging her off with both elbows, "No."

She steps back, not needing more warning.

"Don't you understand Ziva, that you two are the most important things to me, in my life."

She watches the rise and fall of his back, "I know." She says softly.

"And you almost took that away today."

"Tony…"

He finally turns, his eyes darkening to take her in. She's so close now that even without any lights on, he can still see the dark rings beneath her eyes, the way she's got her hair too tightly pulled back and as he flicks his gaze down towards her belly, he spots the bandage around her left arm and suddenly he can't see at all, the room spinning too much.

He can't stop and it all falls out of his mouth and he's yelling at her and it hurts, "Do you have any idea how fucked up that was Ziva, seriously any clue at all?"

She nods a little, "I know."

"No, this is not okay, you don't risk the life of our unborn child because you're feeling restless, the need for killing people an itch you still can't scratch." He spits and watches as his words fall over her.

She's still for half a second, hurt but then she swallows, her entire face rigid, gaining back that resolve.

"Think Tony, if the roles would have been reversed. There is no way you would have sat back, hearing that I had just been taken hostage by a rogue gun man."

"Well no actually Ziva because I care enough to protect the family I have not to try and have them killed." He bites back loudly.

Her cheeks flush pink, her eyes filling with tears and he regrets it the second after it leaves his mouth, because her brother for fuck's sake, he can see it filling in the lines, creases of her face, the hurt, _her brother_. She steps back and her eyes widen like she's in shock and she parts her lips, her breathing uneven.

"Ziva I-"

But it's pathetic and weak and meaningless he knows because he can't look at her face just as much as she can't look at his and he watches, doing nothing as she stubbles away from him, scooping the car keys up from the table and slamming the door.

He has no idea how long he stands there, staring at the door like she's right behind it but eventually he does move, wearily making his way over to the couch. And as he sinks into it, letting himself fold, he lets out a heavy sigh, balancing his head in his hands.

_Shit._

He tries to think of the places she would go, run to in order to get away from him and the thought is so painful that his throat suddenly aches. She was pregnant and injured and upset and he had let her leave to go drive off, alone, into the night. What the hell was he doing?

He stands, quickly pushing the palms of his hands into his eyes before looking around for his car keys, digging into his coat pocket for his phone and pulling it up to his face.

"Come on baby, pick up, pick up."

He flips it shut angrily when the ringing doesn't stop and continues to look around for his keys. Where the hell where they, his keys, his keys.

And just as he spots them, splayed mockingly plainly right beside the opened scotch bottle, his phone rings.

"Ziva?" He asks.

"Wanna tell me why I've got a pregnant woman crying on my sofa, DiNozzo?"

Of course. Tony slams a hand against his forehead, Gibbs, of course. He lets out a heavy sigh and clutches his car keys in his hand, flopping down against one of the dining room chairs.

"Boss, I…you were there, you saw what she did, she risked the life of-"

"For you, DiNozzo, come on, switch roles, nothing would've kept you just sitting and waiting, it wasn't right but you can't blame her for it."

Tony lets the words sink into him, "Boss…is it always going to be like this?"

Gibbs is quiet for a moment and when he speaks, his voice is softer, "Every single damn second, DiNozzo, now get over here."

He runs two red lights and almost misses the street completely he's driving so fast to get to his house.

And as he rushes through the unlocked front door in the direction of the basement, he expects the both of them to be downstairs, not sitting right there in Gibbs' living room.

Ziva's eyes are swollen red and she looks exhausted but he can see her face soften at the sight of him and it makes something soften in himself too.

Gibbs stands from the couch and bends down, kissing her forehead before leaving them, "You ever do that again, Da'vid." It's an unfinished threat, dripping with such honesty that Ziva finds herself nodding seriously as Gibbs gives Tony a stare then disappears through his kitchen.

It's quiet for a long moment as she sits there and he stands there, watching her.

But finally, her eyes give her away and she flicks them up at him.

He's rushing towards her before she can even let out another breath, her arms reaching out for him as he comes down towards her, pressing kisses against her face, her forehead, any little piece of skin he could touch. He had almost lost her today, as angry as he was, had been, the words he had said, he had almost lost her and that meant more than anything else.

She grips to his hands that have gone around her head, his thumbs rubbing just below the curve of her ear, "I'm sorry, Tony. I'm so sorry." She whispers, her voice breaking.

He plants wet, sloppy, all telling kisses right against her eyes then parts back to take in her face, "I know, me too," He says softly, tucking her hair behind her ear and guiding his hands to her knees.

She continues to look at him, her eyes welling with tears, her chin quivering.

"I would never…never risk the life…this baby is…" And the tears leave her eyes and trail down her face.

He presses his face against her cheek, rubbing his nose against her skin, suddenly breathless for her, "I know honey, I know but it's okay now, we're okay, bub's okay, I'm okay, you're okay, it's _okay_." But she's crying and she crashes forward, burying her face in her hands.

Slowly he scoops both arms around her, moving her up so he can hold her better, though it's getting harder and harder as the weeks were going past, her bump the barrier between them.

"You were brave enough to do that, I wish, I wish I was as brave as you." He tells her quietly into her ear but she heaves a little, her face pressed against his chest and he thinks he hears _you are._

They leave to go home quickly after that, eager to be back there together and the car ride seems to ease them both though she thinks he holds her hand a little tighter as they make their way through the foyer into the lift.

"McGee told me that you threatened to shoot him." She says once they enter the apartment and she leaves him by the doorway, heading towards the kitchen.

Tony manages a small smile as he loosens his tie, "I was close."

She clucks her tongue and shakes her head back and forth a little, her hands on her hips, "So protective." She says warmly. The color was back in her face.

Now he laughs, their eyes meeting, "Not my fault you're so damn stubborn darling."

Ziva makes a face, sticking out her tongue and reaches for the handle of a cupboard, pulling out the box of teabags, "I see…Though I do think she will most likely find it more irritating than I do so I should not complain."

Tony immediately stops fiddling with his tie and looks straight at her, his heart picking up in his chest, he couldn't have possibly heard her right, "You just said she. "

She leaves the teabags and turns to him, annoyed, "What do you mean I just said she, I meant me. Me as in she, Tony."

He rises from the chair, his eyes widening and he points a finger at her.

"No no, you said she as in she, our kid, she. It's a girl? We're having a girl?"

She folds her bottom lip under, trying to mask it but he can see it all over her face and he's suddenly smiling so wide it hurts and it spills over quickly into his heart, filling it, enlarging it.

"A girl? We're gonna have a girl?" He repeats a little louder, coming closer towards her.

She bites her lip on a laugh, nodding as he reaches for her face, cupping it in the palms of his hands to kiss her over the plane of her bump.

"They told me at the hospital." She says against his lips and she can feel and hear the steadiness of his breathing, the way he almost needs to lean his weight against her for a second.

"Ziva." He breathes. _A girl. _And he kisses her again.

"She's gonna be exactly like you, too passionate, too beautiful for her own good." He pants, their foreheads pressed together.

She laughs, "With these big wide green eyes, watching everything."

"I only watched you."

She snorts as he grins, "S'true!"

They stand there for a long moment, quiet, basking it all in and he's rubbing his fingers over the shell of her ear, looking into her eyes knowing that right in this moment, they were absolutely together with every single heartbeat, every single second.

"Are you sure you're not hurt, everything feels okay?" He eventually asks.

She nods and blinks slowly a few times, gripping harder to his hands. He knew she was tired.

"Ducky gave us both the all clear as did the paramedic and my GP I asked Abby to drive me to. However, I really do need a shower."

"Ahh, I can do you one better." He grins.

She raises her eyebrows as he comes behind her, sliding his face over her shoulder as he guides her through their bedroom and towards the bathroom, "Take a bath with me?"

She ends up in the tub by herself even though she tugs at him to join her but he's concentrating on better things, rubbing her lower back, pouring water over her hair as she clutches her eyes shut, titling her head back.

She lets out a string of content moans, leaning her head against his arm and he kisses her hair before gently helping her up right and into a towel.

He leaves her to change while he takes a shower and empties out the tub.

As he comes back quietly into the room, expecting her to be asleep, he's met instead with her eyes holding his.

She smiles softly, the blankets pooled around her so that she was completely naked from the waist up. She's rubbing one hand slowly across her belly and he swears it's the most achingly intimate thing he's ever seen in his life.

"Here, come lay down, you might be able to hear her heartbeat."

He just smiles a little, god he wanted to paint it, draw it, write it all somewhere, _she, her, a girl_ and still keeping his eyes on her he lifts off the doorway, "You can do that?"

"Yes, come."

He crawls onto the bed and repositions himself so that his head is flat just below the valley of her breasts, just against the rise of her stomach. He felt a little silly, waiting there, his feet hanging off the bed.

"Ziva…I don't here anyth-"

"Ssh, here, move a little." She holds his head, moving him around slowly until resting him against her skin.

"All I can hear is your heartbeat."

"How fast is it going?"

He reaches his arm over just bellow the dip of her belly where the skin melted into her legs and taps his fingers, expecting for her to make him shift again.

But she takes both hands and runs them through his hair, settling herself further across the bed, "That's not my heartbeat." She whispers and suddenly he can hear the noise like a solid, constant beat, a comforting reassure of life.

"It's hers."


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: All of your wonderful praise of the previous chapter has me a little worried that I won't be able to top it, haha, but really, thank you, so so much. It's very appreciated. And she's a girl! (I have a name now too, there's a tease for you).

She's off the team indefinitely. An order Gibbs made three days later and Tony wholeheartedly agreed with. And to his surprise, Ziva doesn't put up a fight. Though he knows it's because she still feels guilty about the entire thing, (Abby still won't talk to her) but she seems to liken with the time alone, time to organize and clean, prepare for the baby.

But a month passes and then two and this routine has reached the point where she's rearranged the contents of his kitchen cabinets five times, (he's given up asking where things are and she snaps at him when he does anyway.) She's written list upon list of the things they still need to buy, change for when the baby comes, to the point where she's put them all in a labeled folder (_s'_) and the go bag for the hospital is already packed and ready.

Her belly was growing almost by the day along with her temper; he only had to look at her face to guess the type of mood she was in. She interrogates him the second he walks through the door on the particular case they were currently working on and she visits the base when she can but it's not the same. She was getting restless, her energy flooding the walls of his apartment. And he knew it wasn't fair, that she was stuck and uncomfortable but still, it wasn't exactly joy to live with.

She's bitching at him. Again. From three rooms away one Sunday afternoon and he reminds himself as he rolls his eyes that she was pregnant and it was his fault. His fault.

"What is it honey? You need something, some crackers, water, a pillow I can smoother you with?" He rubs the back of his neck as he rounds the corner of their bedroom to find her splayed out on the carpet in just a t-shirt, her hair the river and her belly the mountain top. She groans loudly and smacks the floor with both fists.

"Why did you get me pregnant, why? I am never having sex with you again no matter how much I want it. Ever. I hate you and I hate sex." She lets out a string of obscenities, half of which are in Hebrew.

He chuckles and lifts off the doorway, crouching down to lay beside her, "You're going to take that back in another 3 months."

She glares at him icily, bending her head forward, the only thing she can easily move, "I hate you."

He leans across to kiss her nose and she wriggles out of reach, "Come on baby, I know you're hormonal and you're Ziva but this isn't you, what's wrong."

She let's out a splutter, her sigh a roll of words, "I'm just so sick of it. I cannot do anything, we can't even sleep together anymore." Her voice softens, her eyes suddenly wide with tears.

"I just feel so helpless. Hopeless. Both." She whispers.

Tony looks across her face for a moment. He was waiting for this, he knew her, probably better than himself and she was a restless person. She had to be moving, doing, working. He hated it almost, with her and for her. It was like she had no control and Ziva, Ziva was always the one with control. It made him anxious; he had almost been as restless over the past two months as she was. A change, a familiar one would be a welcoming distraction (from her mood, mostly he hopes.)

So with a smile he rubs his nose against her collarbone, easing himself closer.

"Gibbs was saying something about finding a replacement the other day."

He gets a death stare and then a huff, which he merely chuckles at, sliding his fingers beneath her shirt and along her stomach.

"You're a badass investigator, kickass interrogator and we'd have to tie you to your desk but…we need you babe, hormones and elephant tummy and all."

She slaps his arm but a small breaks across her face, the first one he's seen in days. It's worth the worry currently creeping its way back into his system.

"Really?"

He kisses her the best way he can, still laying with his stomach to the floor and she moans long and deep into his month, scratching her nails along his hair.

"And as for this no sex business…" He rolls up, grinning as she bites her tongue, letting her hands extend to either side of her.

Like it's the most delicate piece of material in the world, he slowly and carefully rolls her t-shirt, with just the tips of his fingers, up and up until her breasts are exposed. She tries to keep still, biting her top lip over her bottom on a wide grin, her goose bumps already pouring across her arms and legs as he brushes his hands down towards her navel.

He moves, kneeling for better access and her foot folds around his butt, bringing him closer. He hangs his head down, letting his tongue barely touch her skin.

She laughs sloppily as he lets out a muffed moan against her belly button, "Come on baby, lemme make love to your mama."

It dies down immediately as he begins to lick his way down the curve of her belly, meeting the plane of her hips and down between her legs. He wraps an arm around either knee and pulls her gently forward.

"So you were saying…?" He growls, breathing across her until he dips out his tongue.

She opens her mouth, breathless but whatever word she had going through her mind, conscious thought to what he had said completely vanishes as he sucks her full into his mouth, shoves his tongue right into her without hesitation and she gasps so violently that her back bucks off the ground.

"F_uck,_ me." She pants and she can hear him laughing, the vibration of it hitting her open and wet skin.

"Ah, you gotta say the magic word, Ziva." He mumbles now scooping a thigh around his arm, opening her wider.

She shifts forward, as much as she can, lifting herself off the floor as she moans, rolling a nipple between her fingers.

"_Please, _Tony."

He flicks his tongue, sliding in one finger and then two before she's finished.

She comes hard soon after that, crazy and wild noises falling right out of her mouth and it's so delicious and wonderful that his eyes almost roll to the back of his head, his cock pressing uncomfortably against his jeans as he rests against one of her thighs.

"Couch." She mutters finally, her eyes still closed, her cheeks pink.

He shakes his head as she pushes herself up; unhooking the shirt from her neck, sweat covering her naked body. And looking at him, she slowly unbuttons his shirt, peeling back the arms. Then unbuckling his pants, sliding down the zipper she pulls them all the way to the floor without batting an eyelid.

"No." He tries to bite out but it's weak and thick with want.

She steps away and eyes him, tossing her hair over her shoulder wickedly and swaying her hips way like she was the sexiest thing alive (she is, goddamn her, she is) she turns and grips both hands to the arm of the couch. Easing herself forwards, she spreads her legs wide until she's so far forward her elbows are now against the arm, her big belly dipping with her ass up.

He's over there, coming up behind her before he can think and he rubs his hand teasingly over her ass. Both hands reach around, flat against her belly, as his cock brushes against her. He grunts, needing to move a little and he almost knocks her down but he has a secure hold of her hip, one hand still on her belly.

"_Go _love." She chides through her teeth and she curls a foot around his as he pushes further in, so easy and quick he needs to grip to her tighter.

As he rocks them, a quick, constant rhythm, she somehow finds a way to press herself closer and he's hitting her so hard in places, her head almost drops to the couch. She comes before he does, the string of her moans and sighs setting out his release, barely thrusting as he does, stars and her skin splitting his vision.

After a moment, their stammered and satisfied breathing filling the air, he lifts her gently up. Their bodies sticking to one another as he encircles her waist and she drops her head lazily against his shoulder, laughing, warmly, openly and he swears he can feel it; the way her belly moves, their _daughter,_ with it all.

"Hopeless my ass."

A/N: So a quick, smutty chapter just to give you all a break from the cheese. Next chapter is a long one.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Thank you once again for the reviews, glad you liked the smut. And sorry for such a delay, another long chapter to make up for it.

"Where are we going to live?"

They were laying in bed one night, early and exhausted from a long day at work and he's only half listening; too enraptured in a comic book series McGee had recently gotten him into.

"Whatdya mean honey…we live here."

Ziva slaps down one of the plethora of pregnancy books she's in the middle of reading and turns towards him, "With a baby? Tony, this place is not big enough for you, me and a baby."

"Your place." He mumbles and turns a page.

She reaches out and snatches the magazine away, throwing it across the room.

"Baby, I was reading that!"

"I'm serious, where are we going to live."

"Your place." He grunts, kicking off the blankets to get out of bed.

Ziva folds her arms tightly against her chest and glares at him as he bends to pick up the comic book.

"What?" He asks loudly when he notices her stare, "It's bigger, cleaner, nicer."

She looks at him for a second longer then juts out her chin, pouting.

"Fine."

Tony merely rolls his eyes, coming to stand up right.

"Come on, I don't understand why you don't like that place anyway, we've been shaking up in this dump for almost a year now when you've got this wonderful place only half an hour away."

He watches as her chin quivers, her arms tensing like she was creating a vice around herself and he drops his book back down to the floor, walking around to her side of the bed.

"What's going on?" He asks once he's shoved her gently over enough to make room.

She looks away from him for a long moment but he takes that she's letting him rub her back as a good sign. She was getting particularly overly paranoid at being touched nowadays, Abby and Gibbs remaining to be the only ones who could without permission, or without a threat.

"Nothing is going on." She shrugs.

He bends his eyebrows up. Nothing his ass.

She meets his expression, giving herself a moment, letting him read her eyes first. Being honest with him was still something she wasn't quite used to.

"It is not my home…not like it once was. It was fine in the beginning but then it became this reminder that I had to live in, constantly, continuously and I do not want my child, our child to experience that loss."

He stares at her for a long moment, not saying a word, the memories flashing across his mind but it didn't make any sense, what she was saying, because it was a different environment, different place, different memory. But then as she looks away from him, shutting her eyes, he understands.

"You haven't told your father yet."

She doesn't move but the slow, unsteady breath she eases out through her nose gives him the answer.

"Ziva," Tony sighs, balancing his forehead in one head, "Why are you letting him do this to you, ruining whatever growth you've had since being away from his influence."

That makes her move. She shoves him over, hard with one arm and shuffles out of bed, making her way to the bathroom.

"Ziva, come on, you know what I meant."

She whirls around, her face twisted with a sudden despair and anger and there's a lump pushing against his throat almost instantly at the sight.

"I am not _letting_ him do anything to me, Tony. I have been focusing on my new life, our new life, not his…but it hurts, to be in that house, hurts, I'm sorry you cannot understand that."

He stands too from the bed, needing to get closer to her, like it would somehow make it easier. He opens and closes his mouth several times before he can find the right words.

"Don't you want what we never had for our kids, a home, a regular permanent, safe home with two parents who are alive, an actually home Ziva, don't you want that?"

Yes, she wanted it, more than anything.

"Kids?" She breathes.

He's caught up for a moment but then he shakes his head and covers his face.

"You have not told your father." She quietly whispers but he's heard it like she's spit it at him.

He drops his arms down, tightening his eyes, "Oh real nice. I'm not afraid to tell my father, I just don't think he'd give a shit." It's a complete lie, he knows it, she knows it but he lets his words fall around them and he moves for the light switch just to stop seeing that look on her face.

He waits for her to slowly make her way back over to the bed, not completely sure that she would, and slides over to give her room when she eventually does.

"I just want to understand. That place has no association with your father." He mutters tiredly once she's lain flat beside him.

It had everything to do with her father; she wanted to tell him, every single piece, frame, section.

But she doesn't and leaves them in the silence of his confusion and her grief.

She ends up crying quietly to sleep, vaguely aware that through the gap between them, he's somehow managed to find her hand and squeeze it.

* * *

The sun pouring through the windows, masking her entire face quietly and gently wakes her up. It had been a long, restless night, she had awoken several times with belly burn, rolling around to find comfortable positions and she remembers as she stretches slowly outward that Tony had moved to the couch.

She lies there still, her body, for a forgiving second, not aching at all.

She knew he would be gone, she had a midwife appointment in the morning and wasn't going to head into work but their conversation of the night begins to creep into her ears and she suddenly has the urge to skip the appointment and drive down to the base instead.

But some space wouldn't hurt and as she turned her head towards the window, the sun like the lure, the longing to be outside seeped into her. It looked like a beautiful day to take a walk and her appointment wasn't for another hour. So sliding out of bed and slipping on one of the maternity dresses in her collection, a light blue one that hugged her in all the right places, she wriggles into her sandals, leaves her wild hair and steps through the front door.

She hadn't really a plan as to where to walk but she's moving in a familiar direction and once she meets the little village right by his house, marking the half way mark between his and hers, she knows exactly where she's going.

He was right. It was a wonderful place. She had found it accidentally, ironically getting lost on the way to his apartment on one of the first weekends she had been back. And though she loved her old place, it was nothing like it. It was spacious, had a balcony that wrapped around it, and it had large windows that let her into the world but could still shut her safely out of it.

It takes a few jiggles but her key turns the lock and she almost, almost reaches for her waist, where her sig would be. But shutting the door, a little too hard, she cures herself. She didn't need to be protected in this place, not with a gun anyway.

She ignores the dust matting the counter tops of the kitchen she specifically designed and doesn't let her feet linger on the carpet that is practically itching beneath her feet to be vacuumed and instead heads to her bedroom.

And as she steps through the door, she takes her hand away from her stomach and brings it heavily to her heart and practically sways against the door. She had forgotten the photos.

A line of them cover the desk just in front of her bed. Some of them she remembers framing, some of them she can't and some of them are just resting against one or two, as though they can't fit or don't want too.

She didn't need a picture to remind her of her sister's face, her brother's, her mother's, her father's and yet, having them all there, was the aching remembrance of their presence in her life, reminding her that they were apart of something that belonged to her. That they were her. She breathes out again, oxygen running through her. This was why she hadn't come back. This, _them._

And as she traces the cheeks of her baby sister, Ari's arm slung easily over her own, she remembers. Letting the memories wash freely over her.

Sleeping with her sister, wedged on either side of their father on the night their mother had died, his voice like their blanket, _I miss her too, my darlings, I miss her too._

Her brother's laugh and encouragement when she had tearfully told him at the age of 8, that she had been punished at school for beating one of his friends up for liking her.

The night Ari had left, kissing both of her cheeks and it being the only time she remembers him telling her that he loved her and how much.

Her father telling her he was proud of her. She can't remember why or what for but as she thinks, standing so close to the picture of him sitting at his desk, that maybe she just didn't want to, a small, tiny, defiant jolt gets to her right down in her belly.

"My baby," She whispers, practically gasps out loud as she circles her tummy, the kicking growing stronger, "I love you so much already."

* * *

There's music lightly playing in the background, dinner cooking in the oven and the sun disappearing over the city, the air still warm when he walks through the door after work.

He drops his keys and his jacket, tugging off his tie a little too roughly. It had been a miserable day, dead body after dead body and she hadn't been there to be that stabling force, to be his partner, and as he spots her, lounging on one of the deck chairs out on his balcony, he can't help but smile, despite it all.

"See anything you like?" He asks her lightly as he steps out onto the patio, leaving the screen door wide open.

She turns her head, prying her fingers away from her mouth to smile back at him, "Too many things."

He shifts another chair closer and leans back, the lowering sun warming the parts of him that felt pale beyond relief. One of the bodies had been a 13 year old kid, a girl by the name of Amy and he couldn't stop picturing her face.

"How was your day?" She asks and passes him her glass of apple cider.

He takes it, squeezing his eyes open and shut before he takes a long sip, grateful, "Same old, same old. Abby missed you."

Ziva hums in reply, shutting her eyes and just looking at her, being so close, is already enough, bringing him back to that surface.

They're quiet for a while and he could smell their lasagna she had made (his favorite) and the familiar breeze of a disappearing season; spring was becoming summer, their baby was going to be born right in the midst of it all.

But he looks at her again, her closed eyes and just see's Amy's.

"Do you ever wonder what things would've have been like…you know if we wouldn't have gotten together in the end?" He asks quickly, wanting to reach out for her hand.

She doesn't reopen her eyes but she moves her hand for her stomach and he doesn't even think she realizes it.

"Sometimes." She replies quietly.

He nods, readjusting himself further along the chair. The distraction was working.

"Eventually, I think, you would have moved on, found another woman to be in love with, play with, tease with. Make a baby with."

He turns to look at her, surprised because that was not what he had meant by the question nor expected to hear. He wonders how often she actually thinks about it. He forgets, sometimes, maybe too easily, how long those four years were, how hard.

"I was just as lonely for you as you were for me, you know. I wouldn't be happy, not like I am now."

She smiles quietly and reaches for his fingers, looping them through hers and it's all he can do to not reach for her altogether, "I know." She whispers and she sounded impossibly sad.

"Ziva –" He starts.

"She kicked today."

He almost drops the glass. "What? Here?"

She looks away, hesitating, "No…I went to my place."

He sets the glass down and sits up right, moving from his chair to hers.

"Are you okay?"

She looks at him for a long time before answering but he can see it all in her eyes.

"She kicked." She repeats methodically and she reaches out one hand, brushing her thumb against his cheek so softly that his head falls a little, and she knows, reading his defeat, that his day wasn't a normal one but was one of those haunting ones, those days you had where you questioned why packing it all up and running wasn't the better solution, wasn't the answer.

"How did it feel? He finds himself asking though he's not really sure what the question is in relation to; their daughter or her.

She opens her mouth, hesitating, her face suddenly exposed and it reminds him, so vividly of that night they had watched that movie together, both lying about having dates. He had seen, from the corner of his eye her trying to communicate something to him, something honest but had chosen to ignore it. It had broken his heart, _again._

"Tell me." He whispers almost desperately and his phone still shoved in his pocket, begins to ring.

He ignores it as she pushes herself forward, encircling her hands around him the best she could.

"You don't have to go." She whispers against his forehead and he shuts his eyes, seriously considering it for a moment but he gently detangles himself away from her and reaches for his phone.

"Gibbs needs me."

She weakly nods and lets him kiss her own forehead and walk back into his apartment.

"Before it's too late, Ziva. You should tell him." He whispers and he's shut the door.

She breathes it aloud, repeats it even after the suns gone down, long after he's left. Like home, it felt like home.

* * *

When he gets back, almost nearing one in the morning, the lights are out with a candle burning in the living room and he just knows.

"What did he say?" He asks softly as he slides into bed behind her, curling an arm all the way around her stomach, splaying it out against her belly button, his favorite spot.

She breathes in and out and he can feel it against his chest, the ease of the rise and fall.

"That he was happy."

They don't speak again for the rest of the night but her breathing is as steady as he remembers it 8 months ago when she wasn't beating a heart for two, but for one.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Not long to go before she's finally here! Thanks for all the response guys, it really is appreciated. And another apology for the delay.

* * *

The weeks leading up to her due date turn out to be the heaviest, busiest case load weeks they've ever had (according to Tony), the majority of it coming down to field work. The times the two of them do get to see each other, properly, are either the early mornings or late nights and even then they sometimes only communicate through lazy kisses or low moans.

She takes her maternity leave early, no longer able to sit comfortably behind her desk and walking back and forth (waddling, as Tony so lovingly put it) through the bullpen alone was wearing her out. Abby and Ducky come over to keep her company when they can although it raises Ziva's suspicions as to why the two of them can find the time to see her through it all.

Abby rubs her feet, paints her nails and generally keeps her boredom at bay while making her laugh as she throws ridiculous baby names at her.

"Come on Ziva, Thore is a great name for a girl!"

They also go shopping for baby clothes like it's a sickness. Ziva never realized how beautiful and tiny those clothes were, they almost had an entire wardrobe filled with shirts, dresses, skirts. But the lion one piece Abby bought from gap has to be her favorite.

Ducky comes to talk and bring her endless amounts of tea which she is grateful for, the comforting lull of his voice often putting her to sleep (that was becoming altogether impossible during the night) and putting a blanket around her while tidying up the place a little.

But she misses Tony and when she tells him, with her lips pressed wet and lazy against the side of his throat one Monday night, he lets out a long sigh, wrapping his arms around her waist so that her back is pressed against his chest.

"Why are Ducky and Abby able to get away but you are not?" She doesn't mean it to come out as whiny as it does but honestly she doesn't care, under the circumstances, she's allowed to be a little whiney.

"Gibbs has me and McGee out all the time,_ investigating_, we gotta investigate to bring stuff back for Ducky and Abby to do, don't we?"

Ziva rolls her eyes and elbows his chest lightly because it sounded so ridiculously made up, even for him but as he bites gently at the back of her neck and rubs low at her belly, where those aches especially got to her, she finds herself letting it go.

He was definitely up to something but she was sure she was going to find out (even if he didn't tell her) sooner or later.

And she does that following weekend with her due date less than two weeks away.

A miraculous miracle lets the two of them sleep in that Saturday morning and though he can barely touch her through the wall of pillows she created for herself, it's the loveliest, most warmest mornings they've had together in awhile. They talk, catch up almost and he drinks in the sound of her voice, missing her just as much over the last few weeks. Eventually he gets up to make them pancakes (her craved food) and they eat together, right in bed.

But the morning's cut off when his cell phone goes close to 10. Ziva lets out an offensive yell at the noise and chucks a pillow in the direction of where he dropped his pants the night before. Tony merely chuckles as digs for it in the pocket then flips it open.

"DiNozzo…Boss? Yes…okay. Be there in 20."

She gives him a pointed look as he shuts it and looks around the room, "Seriously?"

He shoves on his jeans, grabbing a shirt from the hamper.

"I'm sorry baby, he sounded pissed. I'll try to get back as soon as I can."

He comes around to her side of the bed and leans down, kissing her belly and then her forehead but she grabs the front of his shirt before he can move away and kisses him.

"You better." She says against his lips, tugging gently at his bottom one before pushing him away easily. She grins at the look on his face. She knew how to do it to him.

"Not fair." He yells humorously before he winks heading through the living room and shutting the front door.

Ziva flops back onto the pillows with a sigh. Seriously not fair.

But less than 10 minutes pass and the doorbell rings. It takes her five minutes just to get up these days but the person doesn't persist which left only two options. It was Abby. Or Ducky.

It's both. Abby lets out a shriek at the sight of her while Ducky smiles warmly, hat in hand.

"Yay! Ziva! We have got the most wonderful, best surprise for you, well Tony does but we all helped but it was his idea and oh, Ziva, it's the best, you're really really going to love it."

Ducky frowns and lets out a sharp cough, "Abigail?"

She was half dragging Ziva out the door, shoeless and still wearing one of Tony's shirts and a pair of his old college basketball shorts with a very bewildered look on her face, her eyebrows almost touching her widows peak.

"Surprise?" She says. Of course.

Abby quickly nods and pushes her back inside to let her go change. Ziva can hear her continuous shrieks and claps all the way to the bedroom.

"Come on, come on, let's go." Abby grabs her by one hand while Ducky is left to the lock the door, shaking his head a little with a sure smile on his face.

Already deciding that blindfolding her was definitely out of the question (an agreement reiterated by Tony) Abby slaps her hand over Ziva's eyes once they get into the car as Ducky pulls away from the curb. And too bemused by the whole thing and also still a little stunned, Ziva lets her do it.

They drive for what feels like an hour and Ziva begins to tap her foot nervously and rub her belly at the same time while repeatedly demanding to be told where they were going.

When she's almost ready to shove Abby aside and somehow find a way to climb into the front, the car stops.

"We're here!"

She moves her hand away from Ziva's face and helps her out of the car and Ziva blinks blindly into the sunlight, getting her bearings. They were standing outside of her place. Which was only 30 minutes away, 20 if you drove fast (10 if you were Ziva).

"What are we….why did it take so long for us to get here?"

Ducky jiggles the keys as he comes around the car to stand beside her, "To throw you off the scent my dear."

Ducky and Abby lead her up the stairs and through the foyer into the elevator.

"I still do not understand why blindfolding me was necessary."

Abby bumps her gently, "Come on, it was fun, like a treasure hunt."

Ziva just gives her a look that slips into a smile and she shakes her head as the elevator dings to her floor.

Waiting for Abby and Ducky to lead her, she's surprised when she turns back to find them remaining in front of the elevator doors.

"Go on, we'll be in soon."

Ziva frowns but Abby flicks both her hands towards her, unable to remain still beside Ducky and Ziva continues down the hall, coming to her door that is slightly ajar.

She pushes it open carefully and it's when the door is all the way open, as far as it can go, that her heart just stops. The place had been transformed.

A brought to life living room, with pieces of artwork that were her favorite merged with several movie posters she recognized across the wall, their plasma hanging beside two large book shelves filled with books, a large couch with a baby blanket hung across it, a bassinette in the corner, a high chair she spots at the kitchen table as she walks in further. The fridge she had hardly ever used was covered with pictures, of herself with Tony, of the team, baby pictures of a boy and girl she recognized as herself and Tony.

It was her taste blended with his perfectly. It was a house, it was theirs, it was a home.

He had made her hell whole, full of darkness and sadness, this bright, peaceful, loving, familiar place. And this was only the beginning.

"Hey sweetheart." He comes in from the direction of her bedroom and it's then that she realizes she's crying, tears rolling down her cheeks.

"I know this must be pretty overwhelming."

She can only nod as he walks closer, taking her hand and leading her in.

The windows were pulled open, letting the sunshine in with the curtains blowing gently from the wind. She could smell lavender and rose: flowers.

"Let me show you around. It was hard getting our stuff in without you noticing that things were missing but a lot of it's here already, your books and the dvds, the photos and posters."

She squeezed his hand as she took it all in and follows him as he led her down the corridor towards their bedroom.

"This is our room, I hope you don't mind the furniture too much, I know you never liked your old bed and the pictures too, I moved them but they're all here, hanging on the wall."

And they were, above their bed, splayed to see. A bassinette sat against a sidewall and she could see the walk in wardrobe filled with their clothes, neatly assembled with her side and his. They had never had that at his apartment. Their clothes just kind of sat together.

It was beautiful, all so beautiful and just so them, every flavor that was them and just as she thinks her heart will not be able to hold all of this, what he has done for her, he leads her into what used to be her study.

The baby's room.

The mural on the wall is the first thing she sees along with the painted word, _family_ just above a wooden crib, painted white. The room itself has been painted a light pink. The doors to the balcony are open and just in front is a rocking chair, a book shelf against one wall already lined with toys and books.

"Tony," She whispers through her closed throat.

"Gibbs made all the baby furniture and McGee and I painted."

She can't say a word, her heart beating so hard, right against her chest and she spots a picture of the two of them on the ledge of the changing table. It was taken on one of their first dates; in one of those photo booths at an amusement park he had dragged her too. She has her head faced away from the camera as she kisses his cheek and she remembers licking his ear to make him smile.

"If you hate it or if it still makes you feel uncomfortable or not right, we'll move, wherever you wanna go, I just want this kid to know it has a place, to feel like it has a home, that it has us, you know?"

But she rushes forward, wrapping her arms around his neck, letting her heart bloom against the skin and she kisses his cheeks and his chin, his lips because this man, the father of her child, she loves him, has loved him for the best part of 5 years and she can't ever remember feeling like she was exactly where she belonged than in this place, this home, with him.

It's what she whispers in his ear and marry me, is what he whispers back.

"Marry you?" She whispers, her voice shaking and she laughs, sniffing back the tears, "Marry you, marry me, Tony. Marry me."

He grabs hold of her hand and kisses it, giving her a smile as he brings her back into the living room.

And standing there, were her makeshift family, the people she has assembled in her life, the people that love her, faults, flaws, Zivaisms and all. They have loved her enough for that place in her heart where her real family sat, to remain okay, safe..

"I…I do not know what to say." Ziva trembles and she cups her hand to her mouth, shaking her head, letting the tears overflow.

Gibbs gets to her first, wrapping his arms around her, "Welcome home, Ziver."

She laughs heavily as he moves back, letting Abby fly right into her.

"Abby," Ziva whispers warmly, kissing the side of her face.

"I'm just, so happy." She hears herself saying, the only real logical thing her brain can form through words right now. Her heart felt overwhelmed with it all, was consumed for a first time, not by grief, self preservation, anger but pure happiness.

"That was kinda the point, babe." Tony says lovingly against her ear, sliding his arm around her as they sat together in the longue, all of them. Abby, Gibbs, Tim, Jimmy, Ducky, Tony. All of them.

"Oh and Vance wanted to make an appearance but him and Jackie sent the pram."

Ziva wildly whips her head around to look for it, her eyes wide, "Director Vance gave us a pram?"

Tony nods, looking momentarily just as stunned.

"Better than a protection detail, DiNozzo."

"Or a slap to the head." Tony mutters under his breath.

Ziva laughs as Gibbs reaches for him teasingly, a wide smile on his face and the banter and chatter around her continue, their new home, filled to the brim with laughter and warmth for the first time of many.

* * *

A/N: The marriage thing was slightly rushed but I'm not letting it hang. That will be dealt with. ; ) Oh and the lion one piece, THE cutest thing alive, go search for it on the website.

I had way too much fun looking at all the gap baby clothes.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Thank you for the reviews, thank you so much for taking the time. So glad you've enjoyed this story, I've definitely enjoyed writing it.

And again, an apology for such a delay.

* * *

It's McGee who's with her when her water breaks.

"But I've been trying to set up this gaming device system through my home computer that could connect to the computer here but I just…"

Ziva's not really paying attention and McGee sort of knows it but the two of them have always had that easy friendship of wanting to just be around each other amongst a flood of conversation and endless amounts of teasing. It's probably the easiest relationship she's ever had.

She wasn't supposed to come in today, or at all for that matter, but Tony had forgotten some paper work at home and she had dropped it off and had decided to stay. She'd be having mild contractions all morning and wanted and needed something to take her mind off it. Her due date was just shy of a week away.

She's staring up at him, her eyes wide with her head rolling along to his expressions when she starts to feel the leak; she's only wearing a thin cotton dress and her maternity underwear, the summer shaping up to be one of hottest on record. Finding things that were bearable enough to wear was getting near impossible.

She doesn't say anything for a moment and McGee continues to babble on.

When she can feel it trickling down her leg, enough's enough, "Ah…McGee." Her voice an anxious quiver that is so unZiva like he stops immediately, mid word.

She flaps her hands around, parting her legs as she stands, "I ah think…my water just broke."

And sure enough at her feet there is a puddle that could easily pass as spilt water.

His eyes go wider than hers and he pulls as far back as he can, "Ziva?"

She clutches her eyes shut just as the bell dings, landing on the squad room floor. Her hands that are splayed out in front of her are shaking and he doesn't know what else to do so he takes the right one and rubs at her knuckles.

"What should I….where I should….What…"

It's then when he notices the puddle on the floor and looks like he might be sick.

"Listen to me, McGee. I need you to get Tony."

"Ziva you're…"

"Just. Get…Tony." She stammers out carefully, giving his fingers a tight squeeze before letting them go.

He nods quickly and practically stumbles out of the elevator he's in such a rush but he stops suddenly and quickly turns around once he's out to look over at her, his eyes twitching away and then back to her. Like he's stuck between leaving her, staying with her and getting Tony.

She barely lifts her head now resting against one of the back corners, her mouth blowing deliberated air out, "Please, McGee. Tony."

The contractions were still mild but she felt dizzy with shock. She wasn't supposed to go into labor at work, or this early, this wasn't how they had planned it. She was supposed to be at home, with Tony, in private both deciding that they weren't going to head to the hospital until they absolutely had to. She's not ready for this, for any of it.

She doesn't know how long it takes but she's panting quietly when Tony finally appears, sounding like he had just sprinted from whatever part of the building he had been in.

"Ziva?" He asks anxiously, rushing towards her. McGee isn't with him and Ziva guesses he's probably trying to locate Abby, Gibbs and whoever else he would think might be needed.

"My water broke." She gets out, barely looking down at him as he settles on his knees.

"Contractions?" He asks and clutches for her hands, trying to get her to look at him.

She shakes her head then lets out a long, low breath, "Not that bad yet."

She squeezes his hands tighter and he tries not to wince.

"I can't do this."

It's so quiet that if he hadn't had been looking right up into her face, watching her for her expressions, he would've missed it. He bends up, the best he can and reaches for her, cupping her face into the palms of his hand. He can feel her tears before he can see them.

"Listen to me, this is crazy and surreal and amazing and all too much, I know but this is happening, okay? You are the person who can do this, I know you and you can do this. We're going to have a baby, Ziva." He stumbles over the words, his hands shaking because he's just as shit scared as she is but as she rolls her chin up against his fingers, he sees a small smile and it's like the flick of a switch, how much calmer he is from seeing it.

"Okay." She whispers just as McGee comes rushing back, flying against the sides of the elevator and catching himself at the doors.

"Gibbs is coming!"

"McVolume, we are right here. There is no need to shout."

McGee quickly nods at Tony, flicking his eyes onto anything but Ziva and the puddle still on the floor.

"Oh." Ziva suddenly sighs and both boys come forward (though McGee won't put his feet back onto the elevator).

"It's okay, it's pass…passing." She tips her head up and gives them a smile, shrugging Tony's hands away and walking past McGee towards her desk.

"_Ziva_." Tony calls.

She breathes in and out calmly and sits down at her chair, her butt only making it half way on.

"It's fine." She assures them but her voice is way too high and breathless for it to be anything but fine.

"Ziva," Tony sighs and ducks down so that they have a little privacy. McGee has disappeared again, "We really need to get home or even better the hospital."

She shakes her head, still smiley weakly and opens her mouth to reply but then her eyes suddenly go wide and she's gripping to her desk. She bends over it, rolling out her groans through her teeth.

"Let's just go to the hospital, quickly in and out." He says restlessly and clutches for her arms.

"No." Ziva suddenly juts out and her hand becomes a vice around his and he looks towards her questioningly.

"Please…I just need…I can't have. It. Now. I just. Can't. Do. It."

McGee comes racing back and almost falls over his feet he brakes so hard just before he passes Gibbs desk, spotting Ziva hutched over her own, with Tony's hand covering her head.

"You know what I think if Abby and Ducky prepared her lab or autopsy for it to be sterile…and and and if they laid out towels I think you could-"

"I am. Not. Having. My. Baby. Here." Ziva grits out through her teeth and pulls her head up to glare at McGee.

Tony shoots McGee a look before ducking down next to her ear again, whispering things McGee can't hear.

"What the hell are you two still doing here?" Gibbs demands and he strides past McGee and both Tony and Ziva methodically bring their heads up.

Gibbs points in the direction of the elevator and brushes off Tony, reaching around to pull Ziva off her chair.

"Palmer's getting Ducky and Abby."

Tony takes over helping her back onto the elevator while Gibbs slaps the button.

"We'll meet you there." He says and the doors shut with the two of them still staring at him, baffled.

"Well, I guess we're going to the hospital."

Ziva looks at him, her face an array of overwhelming emotions that are matched by his

"Hey," He whispers and comes forward with his arm still around her, so that their foreheads are pressed tightly together, "We _can_ do this.

She nods a little then sniffs, "I'm a week early." She whispers and looks up at him, her eyes wide and full of tears.

He doesn't know enough about premature labour to ease her anxiety, or his own but as she looks at him pleadingly he shakes it off, because everything was going to be fine, he believed it.

"You're just on time." He tells her and kisses the crown of her widow's peak just as the doors spring open.

They make their way over to her car, with the go bag packed and ready in the trunk. And it isn't until their almost half way when the contractions start to get stronger and she's moaning, her face tight.

He holds her hand, feeling helpless. She wasn't making a lot of noise but he could tell just by the way she was holding her face together, gripping her fingers around his thumb that she was in a lot of pain.

"Deep breaths, baby." He says just as she moans again, long and deep in her throat. Her body was bent against the door, her feet tangled and he was thankful she was wearing a seatbelt.

He's running another red light when she exclaims in a yell and drops his hand in order to brace herself against the dashboard. She hums as he reaches over a hand to rub at the back of her neck, needing to do something, anything.

"Almost there, Ziva, you're doing great."

She groans in a reply that sounds too much like a curse to not be one and rocks back onto the seat, spreading her legs open and reaching over for his hand again.

He pulls the car into the allotted emergency space and quickly jumps out, running to the other side.

"Okay, honey, here we go." He's gently pulling her up when an orderly spots them and comes running over to help.

"How far apart are her contractions." The guy asks quickly, looking like he was young enough to still be in high school.

Ziva is blowing out air through her nose and in through her circled lips so Tony answers, "Almost 5 minutes."

"Right, we'll get her into a wheelchair and up to the birthing centre immediately." He could pass as a kid but he was good, Tony thought, as he immediately grabbed the attention of a nurse with a wheelchair.

They had made arrangements for a private room with as little staff in the room as possible and with as little machinery as possible. It wasn't highly suggested for first time mothers but Ziva had opted for a natural birth (Tony was the only one who wasn't surprised).

Their midwife Carrie is already waiting for them in their room and Tony thinks that somebody from the base must've called her. He hadn't even thought of it.

"Okay Ziva, we're just gonna get you up and comfortable on the bed and then I'm going to check how dilated you are, okay?"

Ziva nods as Tony reaches for her arm, lifting her up off the wheelchair and pivoting her around to slide onto the bed. She wriggles a little until she's comfortable then lets go of his hand suddenly, now looking at him with a blank expression on her face that scares the living shit out of him.

"Ziva? What is it? Another contraction?"

And Carrie perhaps spotting it a mile away already has the bucket in her hand as Ziva rolls her head forehead and vomits.

"This is completely normal for first time mothers, it's a mixture of the hormones and endorphins," Carrie explains soothingly, rubbing Ziva's back with one hand and holding the bucket in another. Tony quickly shrugs off his jacket and comes around the opposite side of the bed, beginning to rub at the base of her back.

Once the nausea has passed, together, Tony and Carrie help Ziva lay back flat onto the bed and she swallows against a moan a few times before she reaches for his hand again, her face already covered in a thin layer of sweat.

"Okay Ziva, let's take a look."

"You're doing so great babe." Tony mumbles against her ear, squeezing her hand. He doesn't like that she hasn't said anything since being in the car but he thinks she might still be in shock.

"Well Ziva, you're only 3 centimetres dilated but your water has obviously broken and you're comfortable enough and prepared, which I like, it's good you got here so quickly, you're doing great. I'm going to go check another patient but I'll be back in around an hour to check on you okay?"

Ziva has her eyes closed but she nods.

"Thank you, Carrie," Tony says and Carrie smiles warmly as she ducks out of the room.

He sits back down on the chair, pushed against the bed and squeezes her hand again, looking at her.

"Did you wanna change honey, you have clothes in the go bag, I can run out and get it quickly, we left it in the car…"

He watches as a single tear trickles out of her right eye and feels his throat close with the ache.

"Ziva…look at me." He whispers gently, shaking her hand a little.

It takes a moment but she turns her head, her lips pursed together and her eyes filled with worry. They look at one another for what feels like an hour until he lays his head down onto the bed so they're now face to face.

"When I was 6 and I was stuck in some hotel room, my dad at another one of his business meetings, I remember watching this show on tv," He whispers to her, keeping their hands tightly together, "It was about these mothers, giving birth and talking about how it felt, how much it changed them having a baby, how happy it made them and I remember thinking, if only I could have a baby, I would be less lonely than what I am now."

She smiles quietly and blinks through her tears, rolling her head closer towards him.

"What did you do when you found out that you couldn't?" She asks softly and he grins and kisses the very tip of her nose.

"I got lucky and found somebody who made me less lonely instead and it turns out, she's the one having the baby."

She laughs against the side of his arm and he gazes at her, feeling his ache disparate at the sound. After a moment, once it dies down, she looks at him, her face settling, "I'm scared."

"I know baby and I wish I could take that away but I'm scared too, heck I'm scared to death," He says and strokes her cheek, tucking pieces of hair behind her ear, "But It's you and me, the whole way through this. If there was anybody out there who could do this, it would be you in a heart beat."

She doesn't say anything but she smiles, her face a little calmer and the grip to his hand has softened.

"Would you mind running out to get the bag actually?" She asks as he shifts himself off the bed.

"Yeah sure," He says and jumps up, leaning over to kiss her forehead, "I'll be back in just a sec."

She nods and the door is barely closed when a wave of pain crashes down onto her body, creeping from the base of her spin to the valley beneath her breast. She cries out and uses her hands to buck her off the bed, hoping to ease it somehow.

Nothing in her life, not her Mossad training, not her psychological training, her torture training could have ever prepared her for this, this type of pain. She grips to the bed with both fists, balling the sheets up tighter and tighter until her knuckles are turning white. She doesn't know where the call button is but that is the last thing she is thinking about as she cries out again.

"Did we need some help in here?" A voice asks calmly and a nurse comes racing in, grabbing the bucket off the floor just in time for Ziva to be sick again.

"That's the way darling, just let it out."

It's nausea mixed with the excruciating pain of another contraction that makes her feel like she might pass out.

Somehow, the nurse gets her to sit up and turn and in doing so makes her vomit again but she ends up on all fours, crouched over with her butt in the air.

"Might find this position more comfortable darling." The nurse says and places one hand on Ziva's tummy and the other on her back, rubbing small circles.

It does help but only minutely and Ziva lets her next contraction come out through her mouth, groaning loudly and deeply into the room.

"That's the way, deep breathes, Carrie will be back in 15 minutes, she's almost done with her other patient."

The nurse continues to rub her back just as Tony comes flying into the room, hearing the cries.

"What happened?" He asks, throwing the bag on the floor and rushing over to the bed.

Ziva only groans a reply but the nurse waves his hands over to replace hers, "She's just having heavy contractions but she's dealing with them really well."

Ziva shakes her head and rocks herself back.

"Carrie will be here soon." The nurse repeats and ducks back out of the room.

"S'gone," She mumbles and he helps her sit into an upright position.

He kisses her forehead then bends down for the bag, bringing out their toiletries bag, a blanket from home and the ipod.

He's helping her change into the hospital gown when Carrie comes back into the room.

"Let's see how we're going here."

They help Ziva back onto the bed and Carrie does her check while Tony wipes her forehead with a flannelette, laying out the blanket from home behind her head.

"6 centimetres, Ziva, you are doing absolutely fantastic, Michelle filled me in on the contractions, it might be some time till she's here but you are doing so wonderful."

Ziva nods, almost breathlessly and sinks deeper into the mattress.

Carrie leaves the room again.

"Gibbs and the others are all downstairs, do you want any of them up here, Gibbs maybe?" He asks softly, wiping her forehead again.

And for some reason as she looks at him, her body and mind exhausted and weary, the only person she thinks of wanting is her mother.

As his hand stills, she wonders if maybe she's voiced it aloud but then another contraction is rocking through her body and it's only the pain she can concentrate on.

Another nurse appears at the doorway, this one looking much older than the other and walks right in carrying what looked like a fitness ball.

"Here we are, Ziva, let's get you set up on the birthing ball. My name is Elizabeth and I'm the on call nurse."

Tony doesn't have time to process what the heck a birthing ball could do before Elizabeth is gently helping Ziva out of bed and guiding her over the ball.

"That's the way, Ziva. Now just lean over and rest your head on the bed, you'll feel much more comfortable."

Ziva rests her head over, fixing herself better on the ball as Tony comes around to fit himself behind her, immediately rubbing at the base of her back.

"Didn't even have to ask you to do it." Elizabeth teases with a warm smile and Tony felt more comforted that he ever had since first coming into the hospital by the woman's presence.

Ziva's moans quietly subside to mere grunts, her pain more manageable now on the ball and she could hear Tony's whispers of, "I love you so much, you can do this" in her ear now and then, carrying her through.

"You're doing great, Ziva just keep rocking from side to side, it'll move the baby down where she needs to be." Elizabeth said.

Ziva began to zone out, retracting inside herself in order to keep her focus. The ripples of contractions seared through her body but the bounce of the ball and the warm hands behind her kept her steady. She felt a straw at the side of her face every once in awhile as Elizabeth gave her water and she kept her breathing as loud and open as she needed.

She doesn't know who puts the music on eventually but Tony's hands don't move from her back so she assumes it was Elizabeth. It immediately grounds her further, the familiar opening chords of a song the both of them loved as another contraction tears through her.

"Doing so well, Ziva.

* * *

" Elizabeth soothes as Ziva groans again, digging her forehead into the bed.

"I think…I feel as though…I need to push." She moans after it's passed and tips her head up.

She can hear Tony's shocked, "Really?" and lets Elizabeth lift her gently up, the two of them helping her back onto the bed.

"Let's just check and see, though I think we might still have a little longer to go."

Tony kisses her forehead again as Elizabeth checks, gasping out an, "Oh" once she had.

"You're 8 centimetres dilated my darling, I think we're ready to go."

Elizabeth buzzed on her pager letting Carrie know and fixed the pillows and blanket behind Ziva's back as both Tony and Ziva look at one another, a mixture of exhaustion and elation on both their faces.

"This is it baby, game time." He mumbles and settles himself around her back, one arm underneath each of hers.

"Game time?" She mutters in that familiar tone that always used to secretly turn him on.

He presses his lips against her cheek, "Game time."

* * *

A/N: Next part up some time tomorrow!

And the music they were listening to, in my head, was Ray LaMontagne, a personal choice of mine.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: A loud and massive thank you.

* * *

It takes a long 45 minutes for Carrie to come back from her previous patient, all in which is spent in tears, screams and encouragement, shared mostly between both Tony and Ziva.

It's when she's panting, asking him to let her give up, begging him to do this for her when Carrie comes bouncing into the room, all energy and light and exactly what Ziva needs right now.

"You're still here? I thought you would've popped by now!" She cries with a smile and waves Elizabeth over as another nurse comes into the room.

"Get. Her. Out. Of. Me." Ziva berates on a groan to which the rest of them can't help but quietly smile at. Behind her, with his arms knotted like roots around hers, Tony is sweating with his shirtsleeves rolled up as far as they can go, his hair sticking up in all directions.

"Okay, Ziva, start pushing whenever you're ready."

Tony maneuvers himself around in order to give Ziva the space to lift off the bed and reach down to grab either leg in both of her hands. Tony reaches for one foot while Elizabeth reaches for the other.

"Come on, Ziva, big push."

And Ziva pushed. She pushed with everything she had, beads off sweat pouring down her forehead, her face scrunched and focused.

Tony squeezes her foot continuously as she took gulps of air between each push, the noise of the room calm and centered other than the noises and words of encouragement others would make.

"You're doing so well Ziva, another push for me, she's barely crowning here."

Ziva collapses back, panting through sobs of pure exhaustion and adrenaline, looking towards Tony pleadingly.

"Come on baby, you can do it." He says and squeezes her foot again.

"Come on Ziva, one more push."

Ziva lifts herself back up, a new found sense of determination and pushes again, clutching her teeth together and tugging on the sheets with both hands, feeling her baby through every push.

"Almost there Ziva, you're doing so well, one more big push for me."

And with one great big final push, relief swells through her entire body as their daughter finally broke through and entered the world.

Ziva can barely see through her tears and the sweat matting her face but suddenly, she can feel, like it's always been there, warmth of another body against her skin, bundled in blankets.

She can't speak and as the room continues to buzz around the both of them, Tony ducks his head down on the other side of her shoulder and together they gaze through tears at their child.

"God babe, she's beautiful, she's so beautiful, you did amazing." He can barely speak, his throat so thick with emotion, joy pouring from every limb but she hears it all clear as day. She was beautiful.

Because of tearing, Ziva gets 4 stitches though neither of them hardly notice, transfixed on the little person in the room, crying loudly, the sound like heaven.

After awhile, they get left alone, given some time before the baby had to be taken away to be checked and cleaned up.

They just gaze and smile for what feels like hours. He can't remember smiling like this before, can't remember feeling like he may just melt to the floor, his heart's beating so hard and enlarged against his chest. She was perfect and so completely them, a mixture of himself and Ziva, the baby's sharp green eyes staring lazily at the two of them, her cries subsiding.

Though she's exhausted, her eyes threatening to close, Ziva keeps them open and wide on their child. Counting her eyelashes, thumbing her fingers over her tiny, delicate ones.

"We don't have a name." Tony says, eventually and kisses Ziva's shoulder, never taking his eyes off his daughter.

Ziva, getting the feel for the first time in having to hold their daughter in one hand while dealing with something else in the other, scratches the back of his head.

"I found the list a month ago, when I was doing laundry."

She looks up at him, her eyes soft and clear and he stutters over his surprise, chuckling while brushing a hand over their baby's head, memorizing to himself, the curve of her tiny little head.

"Yeah? I was wondering where I had put that."

"The first one, the one that you underlined, again and again and again. It's my favorite," She whispers and smiles at him tenderly.

He could put it down to exhaustion as he begins to cry shamelessly, his face pressed against her shoulder but really it comes down to the fact that this woman, that he loves, will always love has just given him something that he didn't think he could love more.

"It's okay," She hushes, rocking the two of them, still keeping a secure hold of each.

"Ziva," He mumbles lowly, sniffing against her hospital gown and the baby at the sound stirs, breaking into loud, angry tears again.

"I believe little Audrey would like to finally meet her daddy."

He lifts himself wearily off her shoulder and stands, wiping his face with the back of his hand before reaching down carefully and scooping the baby up into the folds of his arms.

"I'm not just saying this babe, she is really beautiful, we did seriously good." He says offhandedly, staring down into Audrey's face.

Ziva laughs for the first time in what feels like hours and it reverberates around the room, Audrey settling almost instantly at the sound.

"I think she might like the sound of our voices."

Ziva rolls, the best way she can, stiff and saw, to her side, keeping a hold of the two of them, the image storing itself into a part of her heart.

"Just a little, maybe." He says, his eyes glazing with fresh tears staring into Audrey's.

Two nurses eventually come back to fetch Audrey, needing to practically pry her from Tony's hands while Ziva had, unwillingly fallen asleep, exhaustion taking her.

"She'll be fine, we'll be back with here soon and you can always come and check up on her if you want."

He wants. It's only been 5 seconds since she's been out of his arms, Audrey still in the room, and he misses her like crazy.

"We can set up a cot for you if you would like?"

But Tony pulls his eyes away from his daughter, to Ziva and shakes his head.

"No, I think I'll manage."

"Say bye bye daddy," One of the nurses coos, bringing Audrey against Tony's chest. He bends over and kisses her forehead, letting his nose linger before lifting back up. He follows, with his eyes, as they carry her out until the door is closed behind them.

He half drags, half stumbles his way over to the other side of the bed, where they'll be more room for him and climbs into it beside her. She's so tired, she doesn't stir and he finds his eyes closing before his head had even hit the pillow.

He wakes up an hour later, Ziva still asleep with her hand bent backward somehow in order to touch his. He reaches over to kiss her forehead then slides out, stretching his arms up and over his head.

The team was still downstairs and he wanted to see Audrey and also needed to make a phone call and he knew Ziva would be out for at least a couple more hours. He scrawls a note just in case, leaving it on the pillow.

"She's _perfect_." Is all he finds himself beaming, when he meets everyone downstairs, looking almost as weary as he felt.

Gibbs is the first to come forward, his smile so profound it makes Tony's throat ache and Gibbs wraps himself around him, squeezing him tight, "Proud of you, Anthony." He says against his ear, patting him a few times before releasing him to Abby.

"When can we see her? When can we see her? And Ziva! I want to see Ziva!" She squeals, clapping her hands together.

"Is Ziva alright?" Ducky asks as he smiles, coming closer in order to clutch at Tony's elbow.

Tony nods, knowing he looks ridiculous, his smile still on his face, unable to get off his high, "She's great, she's sleeping right now and they took Audrey away for a little bit but she'll be back later tonight."

Jimmy is the next one to hug him, also squeezing him tight and sharing a smile.

"We'll come back later tonight then." Gibbs says and nods to Tony with a wide grin, reaching over to shake his head. He ushers the rest of them in the direction of the exit and they begin to trail off offering parting congratulations and Abby sneaks another hug which Tony gladly gives.

It's Tim who lingers behind, like Tony hoped he would.

"So man…" He starts with a grin and offers his hand but Tony wraps his arms around him, bringing him into a tight hug.

"Congratulations, brother." McGee whispers, squeezing Tony's shoulder.

Tears fill his eyes and he doesn't bother to stop them, McGee's seen plenty worse from him.

"She's so pretty, Tim. She's all Ziva, I got really lucky."

McGee smiles, throwing a hand against Tony's back, "Yeah but she's got green eyes though, right?"

Tony laughs, nodding, "Yeah, she's got green eyes."

To his bemusement, McGee sighs, "I owe Ziva ten bucks then."

Tony rolls his eyes though he grins, shaking his head, "Why am I not surprised."

McGee shrugs, "Because she's Ziva and I'm McGee."

Tony laughs, now putting a hand on McGee's shoulder, "Come back tonight, she'll be awake and we'll have the kid with us," He jokes, smiling as he lets Tim go.

"Tony, she's barely two hours old!"

And with a wide, toothy grin, Tony shrugs, feeling like the happiest guy in the world, "Two of the best hours of my life."

McGee smiles warmly, nodding his head up, "See you later tonight then."

Tony heads quickly back up to the nursery after that, almost panicking when he can't see Audrey but then he finds her face, calm and content, her green eyes blinking all around the room.

"There's my girl." He whispers against the pane of glass.

He stands and watches her for a while, drinking in her every move, her every blink, feeling the distance that separated them like they were miles apart. She had completely possessed his heart and he gladly gave it over, would give anything over. When her eyes were settling closed, he decided that it was then the time to finally call his father.

* * *

Ziva wakes up to a darkened, quiet room. The music still playing softly on a loop in the background. She panicked for just a moment until finding the note beside her head and wriggled to sit up, blinking awake. She felt the absence of Audrey like a constant pang in her heart. It was a need and a want all wrapped so powerfully into one feeling. She hadn't studied her enough, hadn't watched her enough, hadn't smelled her enough, hadn't stared at her enough.

But as she breathes in the familiar scent, still against her skin of her daughter, she realizes, that she had a lifetime to do all those things. That waking up, smiling subconsciously, was going to be a continuous occurrence.

She's snuggling into the blankets again when the phone on the table beside her starts to ring.

"Mrs DiNozzo, you have an out coming call for you, would you like to connect?"

The hospital had mixed up her name and had labeled her as a DiNozzo. They hadn't really bothered to change it and as the sound of _Mrs DiNozzo_ rings around her head, she knows why.

"Yes, I will connect."

It's a few moments of nothing but static before the line clinks.

"My Zeevah, is she healthy?"

She has no idea who called him but guesses it was probably Gibbs and at the sound of his voice, tears fill her eyes and she cradles the phone closer to her face.

"She is perfect."

Her father doesn't say anything for a moment but when he speaks again, she can tell that's he's trying hard to keep from crying.

"I sent things for you, for the both of you, I am not sure what good it will do now but…"

She nods, feeling breathless and weightless because this, between them was still all so new but she knew that stumbling as he was around her, he was just as nervous as she was.

When she tells her father the name they have chosen, he cries, no longer hiding it and they speak only a little longer after that with the promise of a sooner call. He tells her goodbye and that he loves her, loves them and though she cannot say it yet, her voice is laced with it as she whispers, _bye papa._

_

* * *

_

Tony comes back to their room half an hour later, feeling a little defeated, a little overwhelmed but still on that buzz. That feeling like his feet may just lift off the ground at any moment running through him.

He walks in to meet the sight of her, curled against a pillow; her eyes closed and tiptoes in, gently easing himself onto a chair.

"Audrey?" She whispers croakily, opening one eye, almost before he's sat down.

He nods, gazing at her, reaching a hand out to brush her face, "She's sleeping in the nursery like a champ."

She relaxes at this information, noticeably more comfortable against the bed but doesn't shut her eyes again.

She doesn't need to ask him.

"I called my dad, he's on the next plane down here."

Ziva smiles softly and rubs with her thumb just behind his ear as he now rests his head against the bed, "That is wonderful, love."

He nods, a quiet smile on his face, her fingers now rubbing calming circles against his neck.

"I told the others to come back tonight, Abby's practically jumping out of her skin to see you and Audrey."

Ziva grins then readjusts herself against the bed so that he can easily slide into it beside her.

He wraps himself around her, the best way he can in the small space, not realizing that he had missed being so close to her, the baby bump preventing them.

"Talk to your dad?" He asks softly and she nods, looking away from him for a moment.

"He cried." She whispers distantly and feels his lips against her forehead.

"Mine did too."

She looks back at him and they stare at one moment, saying things that only the two could understand, things that were too big, too much to be said out loud.

"I love you, Ziva," He whispers, "And I'm sorry that it took five years for us to figure that out, for me to figure it out but you and me, Audrey, this is it. You're my family and I…"

She nods, putting a finger gently to his lips because he didn't have to say anymore, couldn't through his tears.

"Thank you." She whispers, for so many things.

He swallows a few times before he can speak again, "I think…Audrey's gonna have herself a good long life."

"The best," She whispers and kisses him.

* * *

A/N: So a little cheesy but I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you again for the comments, for the offerings of advice, for the advice and for reading. It's all deeply appreciated.


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